We've all had eerily improbable experiences, haven't we? Running into an old friend on the other side of the Earth, realizing you met someone before you knew them... The world is full of astronomically unlikely coincidences, enough to occasionally make us wonder if we aren't living in The Truman Show.
These folks from all over the world recently went online to share the most freakishly coincidental encounters they've ever had.
45. He Does House Calls
I came home from the Dominican Republic on Sunday. While I was there, I had a bit of health problems. As we were walking to the luggage pick-up, I was saying that I was going to talk to my Doctor ASAP. As I'm waiting to pick up my bags, the guy next to me says, "Hey." I look over and it's MY FREAKIN' DOCTOR! Blew my mind!
44. Neighbor Or Stalker?
We went on holiday to Bali only to discover our next door neighbors were staying in the villa next to us at the resort! It was even better because we didn't find out while we were at the villa; we were out in the town and saw them go past on the road. We all waved and were quit surprised, then went back to our villa later that day to find out they were next to us, which was an even bigger surprise.
Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pexels
43. This Is An Old Jeff Foxworthy Joke
Saw my ex girlfriend at a family reunion. I was not thrilled to find out she was part of the family...
42. Me, You, Peru
I travelled 3,000 miles to Lima, Peru on a business trip. I had an official escort because that city had a little terror problem at the time, and kidnapping of "visitors" was somewhat common.
I wanted to stock up on some snacks for my hotel room so we popped into a grocery store in a random area, totally away from the "nicer" shore area. I grabbed some Skittles or what-have-you and my escort grabbed a drink and a few other things he needed. I went through the checkout first and was standing at the front window, looking out onto this street, admiring the broken bottles lining the walls to all of the house "compounds". That's when I saw a good friend of mine from college walking down the sidewalk.
I ran out and yelled his name and we both did the "what are YOU doing here?" exchange. Turned out he was also working there, but for a full year. My escort was like, "Man, you white people can go anywhere and make friends!"
Edit: To clarify about the security threat: this was 12-13 years ago, the Shining Path group was being pushed out of the cities into the jungles around that time. I believe they had made some kind of threats related to GW Bush/Americans, thus the need for an escort, instead of me taking taxis by myself or whatever. Everyday Limans were certainly doing alright for themselves.
41. You Never Stop Learning
I once saw my old IT teacher at an... adult club. He was wearing a leather waistcoat and a little leather top hat, and menacing a young man with a whip.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
40. It's About The Principal
I was camping in the south of France in the middle of nowhere as a kid with my parents ( I'm from the UK ) and heard this huge bellowing from across this lake: "THAT BOY, STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING... COME HERE THIS INSTANT!!!"
I jolted in utter shock and looked over to where the shouting had come from. The headmaster of the school I attended was standing there laughing his backside off at me. That old jerk.
The odds of him being at the same campsite in the middle of nowhere just blew my mind as a kid, but we had a few chats throughout the holiday and the person I thought was always an absolute controlling tosser at school actually turned out to be a really nice guy.
Pixabay Camping in the Sani Pass of Lesotho.
39. Another Family Reunion
Well me and my buddies once went to an exotic dance club for my friend's 22nd birthday and one of the dancers ended up being on of their sisters. As soon as we walked in, he screamed: "Jesus, Jamie! What do you think you're doing up there on that pole?!?!"
She was pretty good looking in my opinion, and she gave us reduced prices in order to keep us quiet about her.... occupation. She gave us all private dances but she (understandably) did not give one to her brother. We kept trying to get her to, but she said that she was only allowed to do that for people who paid themselves.
38. The Looking Glass
I was backpacking through Europe (I'm American). I was walking to the train station in Amsterdam at 8 am. Suddenly, I hear someone knocking on the window of the restaurant I was walking past. It was a girl I went elementary school with and hadn't seen in over a decade.
37. Love Square
Valentine's Day. The boyfriend and I had reservations for a very small, intimate Italian restaurant that is nearly bloody impossible to get a seat at.
Coincidentally, so did my ex. And his ex. Together.
36. Bones And Bros
I ran into an old friend in the extremely creepy Sedlec Ossuary (a church made of human bones). I was on a visit to Prague while travelling by myself and decided to take a day trip out to see the ossuary. I was there for half an hour at most, but while there, I ran into a guy I had randomly met at a hostel in Barcelona the year before.
That was quite the coincidence.
35. Kids Will Get You In Trouble Every Time
I married young, divorced after a few years (no kids!) then remarried and had a son. Son gets to school age, who's child is in my son's class? My ex wife's, who has since also re-married and had kids. Her son and my son are now friends, and I have never spoken to my ex since we split. Awkward!
My wife and I are still discussing how best to handle the situation if their friendship grows. At the moment they are only 5 so no need for any "talks" yet.
Photo by Victoria Borodinova from Pexels
34. Meet The New Girl
I was kinda dating a girl for a while, nothing serious, broke it off with her because a girl I had a crush on for a while made herself available to me. On our first date, we walked into a store and who's working the only till in the store? You guessed it. My now ex-girlfriend.
I can see the resentment burning into my soul as the girl I'm on the date with grabs a shirt and yells, "OMG OOOOOH THIS SHIRT IS SO NICE. I've gotta get it!" Crap.
I try to tell her I'll wait outside whilst she tries it on, but she insists I see it on her first. She looks really hot and we walk to the till. Im like a foot away from her. We get served in a passive aggressive manner, and I walk out the door as quickly I have ever moved.
33. Eh Plus
I'm Canadian, and I ran into a guy I used to work with while on vacation in rural Myanmar (Burma), which is weird because it's not a very well-traveled country.
My wife and I were staying in a small town with probably only 100-200 other tourists in it at the time. We decided to get some dinner a couple hours early and sat at a restaurant patio. There was only one other table with customers and lo and behold, I look over and there's Alain (coincidentally wearing a t-shirt with the logo of the company we both worked for).
The next morning we saw him again. Turns out he was staying at the same hotel as us!
Photo by Jérôme Prax on Unsplash
32. God Was There Too
My girlfriend and I went to an obscure adult shop outside of town, and we saw my best friend's super religious dad shopping for toys. We made awkward eye contact and nodded at each other.
31. I Bet Every Dancer Has A Story Like This
Back when I was an exotic dancer, my psychiatrist came up to tip me on stage. He didn't recognize me until I asked, "Don't I know you?" Pretty weird place to see someone you know, but the weirdness was amplified by the circumstances.
Photo by Alexander Mils from Pexels
30. Now She's Someone Else's Ex
I ran into an ex-girlfriend at a random resort in Cuba. She was there by herself.
I was there with my girlfriend when I heard her a familiar voice in the lobby, turned around and there she was. (She wasn't a recent ex, so I didn't think much of it.) She said her boyfriend had to work so she had come by herself.
We hung out a little. We would go out to eat, have drinks on the beach or pool then I noticed she was leading on a guy at the resort. Going on day trips, pedal boats rides etc. I don't know if they hooked up but my bet would be yes. As the week went on she started to became a pain in the butt, getting really hammered at the swim up bar and having to be put to bed around 4pm. I just avoided her for the rest of the week.
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29. Kim Possible
I ran into someone from my high school at a bar in Pyongyang, North Korea. I mean, come on. No one visits North Korea.
28. You Should Have Gambled
In high school, my friend set me up with her boyfriend's cousin (let's call him Jack). Jack and I were walking around an amusement park and started talking about recent family spring break vacations. Turns out, both Jack and I had been in Las Vegas during the same week. We stayed at the same hotel. The conversation changed subjects when Jack stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and said "I saw you in Las Vegas." I thought he was full of crap, there's no way he would remember some random girl among the thousands of people there. He told me the exact place he saw me, and that my sister and I were posing for a photo. We got back to my house and found the picture.
There were Jack and his brother in the background.
27. Hidey Ho, Neighborino
I'm from Minnesota and went to Yellowstone on vacation one summer. Hiking a remote trail in the absolute middle of nowhere I come around a corner and literally bump into my next door neighbor. It was a little awkward because we barely knew each other but both of us realized the astronomical odds that this would happen.
26. Intercontinental Schoolmates
I went to elementary school in Germany. When we moved back to the States the class I transferred into had another kid from the same German school. We'd eye each other never believing we could be who we thought. Last day of class I asked if he'd ever been to Germany and he said, "I KNEW IT!"
25. Placement And Timing
I'm from the Bay Area, CA and a couple years ago my girlfriend at the time decided to go to Los Angeles for her birthday weekend. Last minute I decided to go. We were staying with her friends that went to UCLA, so we were around Westwood. One night just me and her walked to the little downtown area to get some food. We approached a main corner, and coming from the other side meeting us right in the middle of the corner was my girlfriend's cousin who we were good friends with.
It's not that strange to run into someone from Bay/LA, but the fact that we all just happened to perfectly converge on this street corner late one night was amazing to me. We seriously walked up to the corner at the exact time like it was rehearsed. We didn't know she was in LA at the time, and she didn't know we were in LA either. I've seen other people I knew far away from home, but the way that happened just blew me away. A 15-30 second difference and we never would have seen each other.
24. The Guy At Versailles
I was in Paris in January, not the most common time to be there. Our host took us into a small neighborhood cafe popular with locals and the first person I saw was a professional colleague from North Carolina who happened to be visiting Paris the same time.
Also weird, when at Versailles later that week I noticed some American students in front of us; glanced at the luggage tag hanging off the backpack of one of them. It was a student whose college application I'd read earlier that fall. Incidentally, she was from North Carolina too.
Lesson learned: January is not such an odd time to be in Paris. Particularly for North Carolinians.
23. All Roads
I was on a school trip to Rome (I live in the Netherlands) and I randomly ran into someone I knew from a LARP event. I guess all roads really do lead to Rome. One of my teachers thought it was so romantic and I should go out with him.
22. Classy Move
I dated this girl briefly. We played darts a lot. The last game we played was 501 instead of cricket, like we normally played. We had a good-natured dispute about the rules, because she failed to double-out and claimed I hadn't called it. I said you don't have to call double-out, that's inherent in the rules. Our relationship kind of petered out. Totally amiable, just neither one of us was really interested in the other.
Five years later I was in a city about 1,000 miles away in a hotel bar having a drink waiting for a show to let out. I saw her at the other end of the bar. I sent her a drink and asked the bartender to tell her "you always have to double-out." He goes down to where she is and hands her the drink, says a few words, she gets a quizzical look on her face and he points to me. I smiled and nodded, she smiled and waved back. I left money on the bar to cover my tab, and left.
Photo by Hasan Albari from Pexels
21. Mug Shot
I was once mugged by 4 guys on one of the main shopping streets of Nairobi, Kenya. One of the guys had me in a choke hold and just before I was about to pass out, they dropped me and ran. At the time I didn't know why.
12 months later, sitting on a beach on an island in Thailand, I meet a British couple who did business in Kenya and we start to talk about how dangerous it was getting for foreigners. They described an incident the year before where they turned a corner and saw a guy being mugged. A shopkeeper rescued him by hitting one of them over the head with a bat.
I realized rhey were in the same street, on the same day, at the exact same time I was there. It was me who they witnessed being mugged. What are the odds of randomly meeting up on a beach in Thailand a year later?
20. Brothers In Arms
My family used to take little summer vacations. One summer (I was about 7-8) we stayed at a campground about 4 hours from home. There were a bunch of kids there and one day we all started playing tag. I was "IT" and was chasing another young boy, and when I tag him, I pushed him too hard and he fell and broke his arm. I remember the scene vividly.
Fast forward to college. I became good friends with my neighbor in the dorm, and we ended up getting a place together our sophomore year. The following year (no longer living together) we went out for a few beers and the topic of broken bones came up. "I've only broken one bone, and it was my arm when I was 7. Some kid at a camp ground pushed me over while playing tag". It was me. Still can't believe it.
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19. Lost & Found
A few years ago I into a cab heading out for the evening in downtown Toronto. Shortly after being dropped off I realized I had left my phone in the cab. I tried calling it with no luck. I called the cab company but because I had flagged the cab and paid cash they had no real way of knowing which cab I was in. I figured the phone was as good as gone and went about my night.
Many hours later and having moved around the city quite a bit I am ready to call it a night so flag another cab. Sitting in the back seat I start to think the driver looks familiar and realize that I'm in the same cab I took earlier. He hasn't found a phone but I start looking anyways and sure enough there it is, jammed in the seat. Me and my flip phone were happily reunited, only for me to put it in a washing machine two days later.
18. Christmas Miracles
An American friend of mine by the name of Tom took his family on vacation to check out Antarctica. He met an Australian guy named Paul on Christmas day in Antarctica. They didn't exchange contact info.
A year later, Christmas day, they take their vacation to Machu Picchu. He is looking down at a map when he hears, "Hey Tom, how the hell are you?" If was Paul, taking his family on their annual trip as well.
17. Simon Says
My first semester of college, I moved out of state. I was first to move into the apartment and had a few days to my self. After orientation I found my new roommate sitting on his bed. When I introduced myself, he asked where I was from. When I told him, he mentioned, "I used to have a friend named Simon."
I said, "I used to have a friend named Will." It turns out we had been best friends in first and second grade until his family moved.
16. Notre Dames
As a college sophomore, I went on a trip to France by myself. I was sitting in Notre Dame Cathedral, listening to music, when a girl I dated in high school sat down near me - totally at random. We were both speechless when we saw one another there - out of the blue - in a foreign country within a vast cathedral.
15. Not Instant, But Karma
When I was a dumb teenager in the 80s, we would drive around town at night in my friends blue 66 mustang and spray people with an old water fire extinguisher.
Fast forward 10 years and I'm selling a house. Our primary buyer, an older retired lady, backs out last minute.
Our realtor drops by to tell my wife and I why. She explains that while waiting our our gate to be buzzed in some teenagers drove by and shot the old lady with a air soft gun. Nuts.
She then continues...
"Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with kids. When I first came to America 10 years ago, we were sitting at a bus stop when a group of boys in a nice blue car drove up smiling. When they got closer they drenched us with some water spray..."
Our realtor was one of my wet and wild drive by victims.
14. Astronomical Odds
I'm an American who moved to Amsterdam some years ago, and my first year there on a random Saturday I decided to head out for a drink. Sat down next to a cute German guy who was in town for the first time from six hours away, helping a friend move kind of thing, and it turns out he's doing a PhD in physics. I am doing mine in astronomy and have a physics background, so we spend maybe ten minutes discussing our research topics, when he mentions offhand how he used to study in New Zealand.
I get a confused look, and then get all excited. "Johannes! Prof W's E&M class in Auckland, first half of 2007!" It freaked him out until I explained -- I was a semester abroad student in Auckland that year, and not were we only in the same class we even did homework together and such. But we lost touch once I left the country, with no one having a clue what happened to the other. Only to randomly run into each other five years later in a random bar in a random city on another continent!
I don't know if I can ever top that one, it was pretty darn cool.
Photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels
13. I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You
I lived exactly a mile away from my now-husband throughout our entire childhoods, teenage years, and early adulthoods before we'd even heard of each other or met.
What's even stranger is, when he was running, he'd know he'd completed a mile when he reached my family home and would regularly stop and time himself right there on our sidewalk.
12. Ships Passing In The Night
When I was 13, I was on a family holiday in Venice. We were on a gondola (Venetian punt boat) touring the waterways of the city. We got half way down a long passage way, and another Gondola passes us by, carrying a man and a woman (and the punter).
The man and my dad locked eyes, exclaimed one another's names, and exchanged a quick handshake as our gondolas passed. Myself, brother and mother sat quietly, pretty stunned, while the woman on the other boat explodes with, "What? Who's that?! How do you know him?!" We floated off in the other direction, comparatively swag and chill.
Turns out it was a guy my dad went to university with, and hadn't seen him since. They haven't even contacted one another since! It's crazy they recognized one another, considering they were both in their late 40's now, passing fleetingly on two gondolas, in Venice.
Photo by Chait Goli from Pexels
11. The Truman Show
Never could explain this payphone incident. Saturday night out with friends, we decide to call my friend Al to see if he wants to join us. This was in England long before mobile phones, so we had to use one of the iconic red phone booths. Someone was already using it so we had to wait a few minutes. Guy leaves and we cram in the booth.
Now, in those days, in order to make a call you would first get a dial tone, then call the number. When the person answered you would hear a bunch of beeps at which point you insert the coins. So I pick up the phone but hear no dial tone. I hang the phone up and try again.
Still no dial tone. Seems to be still connected to the previous call. I say "hello" to see if anyone is still on the line. Person answers "hello?" It was my friend Al. He had just picked up his phone to make a call, and somehow, miraculously, without even dialing his number, we were connected.
We all went to the pub after and tried to figure out how in the world this happened, but it remains a mystery. If I did not have my friends with me at the time as witnesses, I would have believed it was my mind paying tricks on me.
Photo by Mike Bird from Pexels
10. A Little Of Column A, A Little Of Column B
So a few years ago when I just became a bartender and was getting into the whole "oh my god is it really that easy to get women's numbers?" phase, I ended up getting a girl's number on one night, and another girl's number the next night.
So go right ahead and start texting away with the both of them, blatantly using the same phrases just changing out the names.
However come Monday morning the bomb drops. Turns out not do they go to the same university, but they're in the same year level, same class and were currently partners on some sort of assignment. They were not as amused as I was.
This is how the conversation went.
Me: (text to both girls) So want to get some ice cream later?
Girl A: I don't know, why don't you ask Chloe.
Girl B: I don't know why don't you ask Jessica.
Me: (still texting both) Bring her along, we can make it a party!
And then a couple of messages from both about how I'm disgusting, a loser etc.
But the story doesn't end there.
Fast forward a couple years later. I'm at some restaurant with some friends and we bump into a mutual friend of ours and he's with a couple girls. We invite him to sit down with us, and we're all chatting away and happily making friends.
I cosy up to one girl and we start talking and flirting a bit. Tell her I'm a bartender and she laughs and says "I'll never date a bartender, because of this one guy that-" And she just stops and freezes and looks at me.
Turns out it was Girl A and not enough time had passed to heal this particular wound. She got up and stormed off, never to be seen again..
But wait there's more!
Fast forward about a year later. I go out clubbing, off my face, meet a girl, we hit it off. Wake up next morning and lo and behold it's Girl A and she was still not as amused as I was about the situation.
9. That's So Sad
I've wrote about this before but I still think it's insane, so here goes.
When I was a little kid my parents would take my sister and I to visit my great grandmother in the nursing home. She was mid 90s, blind, and to young me basically terrifying. I hated going to see her, to be honest.
Every time we went she would touch our faces (you know, because blind) and talk to us a little. Meanwhile, her roommate somehow knew my name and would always try and hug me. Even though my parents never said more to her than pleasantries. It always freaked me out.
Fast forward to my mid twenties. My dad mentions, just casually as anything, that the roommate was HIS grandmother, and my OTHER great grandmother. She didn't know my name. I am a junior, and look like my dad. So she thought I WAS my father. She was senile after all.
Apparently there was a falling out when my dad was a kid, and he had no relationship with much of his extended family. She didn't recognize my dad because she'd never seen him as an adult.
The messed up thing is they lived in a city nursing home. Pretty big city too. And just by sheer coincidence, my parents grandparents were roommates.
8. A Taste Of The Past
I live in Australia and I have for almost my whole life but I was born in Dubai. Every weekend in Dubai my mum would take me to the Hilton beach club and sit me in front of the pastry chef and eat. We moved away from Dubai really early on so I don't even remember much.
Fast forward to 17 years of age, a new kid at school had just moved from a nearby town. We became friends and we both loved cricket, and we practiced a lot together. My dad and I were giving him a lift home after we were practicing and dad asks, "Where were you born?" And he says "Dubai." And the conversation continues and I say I was too etc.
Then the guy says, "My parents used to be the pastry chefs at the Hilton beach club." This blew me away; here we were 16 years later, halfway across the world, and it turns out every weekend as a child I sat in front of his parents and they made my breakfast. To this day I still get goosebumps thinking about it. I mean what are the chances?
7. Okay, That's Creepy
I met my now-husband at work. Turns out there are enough coincidences that my mom is seriously wondering whether we are distantly related.
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We were born in the same hospital, two weeks apart
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We then both moved about 500 miles away and ended up in the same university together
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We moved from there another 100 miles away and worked in the same company
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We both have relatives in the same area in Dublin
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We both have a relative that worked in the same hotel in Dublin at about the same time back in the 1930s
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My mom and his grandmother have the exact same combination of unusual first and middle names.
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I have the same birthday as his mom
We don't live in Ireland.
6. La Belle Province
I'm from Quebec, where our French has a very 'distinctive' accent. It's very rare to hear it outside of the province, and my ears are super sensitive to it and pick it up quickly. I now work in Taiwan, and one day I hear someone behind me speak with the Quebecois accent, so I immediately turn around. Turned out to be someone I went to high school with!
5. Patch Match
Back when I was in the Army, I was sent to Fort Gordon, GA to learn a new MOS. I was running around base one day with a friend and noticed a female private with a hoodie that said 'Patch' on the back. I commented on it to my buddy and didn't think anything more of it.
Fast forward about 9 months. After graduation my next duty station was the Pentagon. I meet a girl there, we talk, end up hooking up, turns into dating. One day she puts on her Army hoodie and when she turns around, it says 'Patch' on the back.
We have been married for 19 years yesterday.
Photo by Katie McNaught from Pexels
4. Long Lost Grandson
In 2004 I was 18 and on a 3 week tour of Europe. I was at the Louvre and had just experienced the cluster fuck that was the Mona Lisa exhibit.
After looking at it for 2min I started to winder around aimlessly. As I was walking an older couple asked if I knew how to get to the Mona Lisa exhibit. I told them yes, and because I'm horrible with directions, I'd be happy to walk then there myself.
They were really nice and very appreciative that I was taking time to help them. They asked me where I was from -- Nashville, but I mentioned my parents were immigrants from Italy. They told me they were from Portugal on anniversary. We talked a bit more, told them my name and they were really excited about since I shared the same name as their grandchild.
Anyways, we get to the exhibit and I go to part ways and shake their hands but get pulled in for two massive hugs and a kiss on the cheek. They give me their address and say any time I'm in Portugal to stop by and I'll have a place to stay and eat. We take a group photo and leave.
7 years later I'm in Munich for Oktoberfest. I'm standing outside my hotel waiting for my friends when an older couple ask of I know how to get to the fairgrounds. Again, I'm bad with directions, so since I'm headed there I tell them they can just follow me and my friends.
Again we start talking about where we are all from. Now, I have a memory like an elephant and once they mention they're from Portugal I start to think maybe these are the same people. I ask them if they have grandkids and they say they have 6. I ask if one of their names is [my name]. They look at each other sort of surprised and say yes. They ask how do I know that, and tell them that I had met them 7 years prior in Paris at the louvre.
The old lady gets really happy and starts crying and starts to hug me. They say they remembered me now and asked why I never came to visit, that they had our picture in a frame on their wall and always wondered what happened to the nice American boy.
We spent the next 3 hours drinking and catching up. Luckily we got there early so we were able to get an empty table and they bought all the drinks the entire time. This time they demanded I give them my email so we could keep in contact; I even added their son on Facebook.
2 years later I go and visit for the summer and sure enough there on the wall amongst the rest of their family pictures is 18yr old me standing between them.
I'll tell you all something, I'm a bit of an introvert and can be awkward when meeting new people simply because I like to get a feel for who they are and where their boundaries are. But never in my life (other than with my own family, and maybe not even then...) have I ever felt more at home and that I belonged then the 3 weeks I spent with them.
We still talk weekly. It's like having a second family.
3. Mail Man
This happened to me a few months ago, and it was pretty darn improbable. I'm walking through BART (Bay area rapid transit, it's the train station that takes you to and from San Francisco and elsewhere), where an average of 375,000 people pass through daily. I walk up the escalator to my train, and pass by an envelope lying on the ground. At first I didn't think much of it, but I took a couple steps back to pick it up anyways. The next part freaked me out. I looked at the address, and it was addressed to ME.
I instantly look around to see if it was a practical joke, or if i'm about to get assassinated or something. Neither of those were the case. The sender was a family friend, we'll call them the Johnsons. I knew that Mr. Johnson took the BART daily, but I had never personally ran into him.
After work, I call him up and ask him about the letter. Turns out, he had about 300 letters with him on the BART, and was going to send them out for his daughter's graduation party. What in the world are the chances of him dropping the 1 letter addressed to me out of the 300, combined with the chances of me being the 1 out of 375,000 people to pick it up? Pretty wild.
2. Urine Luck
I love telling this story.
I had just graduated high school and I was backpacking Europe with a couple of my close buddies. We were in northwestern Italy, on the coast in this beautiful area called Cinque Terre. My buddies were sleeping off a hangover and I was chilling out on the rocks near the beach reading.
There was a group of girls hanging out in the distance and I kept peeking over at them because they looked young (about my age) and I was trying to pick out whether they were American. A couple of the girls were swimming. Suddenly, one of them started screaming. I could clearly hear her yelling, "HELP! HELP!" She was hysterical.
I was a lifeguard at the time, so I quickly scurried down the rocks to get to the distressed girl. By the time I got down there, two things had happened:
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One of the girls had jumped in the water and rescued the distressed girl.
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I noticed the group were all girls I knew from high school. I had no idea they were in Europe even though I was semi-close friends with every one of them.
The girl who had been in distress (also someone I knew very well from high school) had been stung multiple times by a jellyfish.
The girls were flipping out but also stunned to see me standing there in my flip flops on the same beach in Europe. There were no pleasantries, only: "YOU HAVE TO PEE ON IT! PEE WHERE SHE WAS STUNG! PEE WHERE SHE WAS STUNG!" The girl who was stung by the jellyfish was holding out her arm telling me to do it in between sobs. I wanted to help, so I pulled out my junk and peed on her arm.
I think it helped a bit. We got her to a pharmacy and ended up buying some type of cream. I peed a good bit on her arm, with four other girls I had grown up with watching. On top of the sheer coincidence of us all being there on the same beach. It was freaking weird.
1. You Ain't Got No Alibi
I lived in eastern Pennsylvania at the time and was visiting my sister in Seattle. we were at the Alibi Room having drinks and two dudes sitting near us kept trying to engage us. We were kind of having none of it (sisters before misters, that day). So we left.
Fast forward nine years. I now live in central PA, like 20 minutes from where my mom lives. I'm at a bar (recurring theme, here, it seems) talking to a friend about going to visit my sister in Seattle. The random dude next to us chimes in and starts talking about where I should go and what I should do. "I used to live there," he said. It takes us a while to put together but of course it's that dude from the Alibi Room. Of course.
And of course, we learned five or six months later, he is the son of one of my mom's best friends. My mom has known him since he was a teenager (we're old now).
And of course we're seeing each other now. I mean, it was practically woven into the fabric of the universe, you know?
