Need to Reach Mark Plotkin? Make Sure the Right One's on Speed Dial

"My first week here in Washington, I got calls from [House Speaker] Tip O'Neill's office, Ted Kennedy's office and Marion Barry's office," he said. "I thought, 'What a welcoming town!' But when I called them back, I realized it wasn't me they wanted."

For years after the lawyer's house in Potomac became one of the first $1 million mansions featured in Washingtonian magazine, the political commentator couldn't get a raise because nobody believed he needed the money.

The lawyer said he always dutifully forwarded calls to the commentator "except for your creditors," he said. "There were a lot of those."

"But I will admit, I took advantage of this situation just once," the lawyer confessed.

It was at the time of a Marion Barry scandal, when a radio station woke up the lawyer about 1 a.m., asking for comment about the D.C. mayor.

"It was late, but I couldn't resist. I used some choice words to describe him," the lawyer said. "And they went with it."

The commentator remembers this one. "And I called you the next day to tell you that you're having a little fun at my expense."

Given their differences, the men's paths might never have crossed were it not for the mix-ups caused by their names. In the 1970s, when the ethnobotanist was about to receive a master's degree from Yale University, the Office of Student Affairs presented him with a bill for $22,000.

"I was on a full scholarship. I didn't know how that happened," he said. But when he took a closer look at the bill, he noticed the Social Security number wasn't his.

That's how he learned about the lawyer, then an undergraduate.

"But I knew about you earlier," the lawyer said. "Do you know how many lab fees I kept getting charged for? I never set foot in a lab."

Utility companies, creditors, universities and bosses have all mixed them up. The Washington Post ran a correction in 2004 after pairing the lawyer's photo with a story about the commentator.

All three agreed that one agency has routinely tracked them down year after year with pinpoint precision, never once mistaking one for the others:

The IRS.