Hearing voices

The other night at dinner, Rachel asked Benjamin to please stop talking so much (or at least speak in a quieter voice) and he said, "You sounded like Mom just then!"

Rachel shrugged her shoulders with defeat. She's more or less accepted the fact that our voices and speech patterns are...very similar. Sometimes we can't hardly tell each other apart when we hear a playback of ourselves conversing (say, for example, if Alexander happened to record a clip of us, which is not unusual—he loves recording people). Just last week my sister Abra called to wish Rachel a happy birthday and I said, "Well, you're on speaker and I'm handing the phone to Rachel because I'm currently pushing the stroller up a big hill..."

She proceeded to have a lovely conversation with Rachel about her cat, about life, about the storm we'd just had. Then she said, "Well, I just wanted to call to wish Rachel a happy birthday!"

"Thank you!" Rachel said, somewhat confused about why Abra was talking about her in third person. 

"You're welcome??" Abra said, equally confused. "Can I talk to her?"

"You've been talking to her the whole time!!" I laughed. "I told you I put you on speaker and handed you to Rachel!"

"But she sounds so much like you! I thought you were doing all the talking!"

So Rachel is aware that our voices are, at times, indistinguishable. And sometimes you just have to accept such things as facts of life. Rachel has done so, and thus gave her defeated shrug when Benjamin pointed out that she sounded just like me. 

Zoë, however, wheeled around and chided Benjamin: "BENJAMIN! That is sooooo rude!"

Now, was it rude that Benjamin said Rachel sounded like me? Or was it rude that Zoë assumed it was rude to think that Rachel sounded like me? Or was it rude when I told Grandpa (Reid) this story at dinner he said to me, "Well, you sound exactly like your mom, so..."