There are a ton of birthday coincidences in my family.
My son was born 1 day off from my birthday.
My stepson was born 1 day off from his dad’s birthdsy.
My stepdaughter was born 1 day off from my mother.
My sisters shares the exact same birthday with her daughter.
Her older son was born on her best friends birthday ( who also happens to be my wife’s sister).
Her younger son was born on our other sisters birthday.
My nephew was born on my parents anniversary.
My oldest daughter shares a birthday with my brother in law ( her uncle)
My middle daughter shares a birthday with her cousin.
My youngest daughter shares a birthday with my mom’s aunt.
My brothers kids were born in Feb (2) of 2002, April (4) of 2004, and August (8) of 2008. His youngest was born on 9/11…
Last week, I was stopped at a red light and gazed at a billboard just beyond it. It was for Arco gas, and said something like “You Don’t Have To Spend an Arm and a Leg to Fill up Your Tank”. As I waited, a man crossed the road in front of me, with an artificial leg.
Also, decades ago- when everyone had a landline and mobile phones were still science fiction- My future wife would sometimes receive phone calls asking for ‘Clarence.’ Her name was listed in the phone book with just her first initials, one of which was ‘C.’ Turned out the ‘Clarence’ they were kept looking for was one of my high school teachers from 10 years earlier.
About 10 years ago, I was at a grocery store, where I saw a customer with a withered left arm. Later that day, I had to go to another grocery store, and I saw a different person with a withered left arm. I don’t see a lot of withered arms in general, let alone two in the span of a few hours.
I’ve posted this before in another thread, but it fits the subject perfectly.
On my weekly grocery shopping day, I go to two different stores and buy different stuff in each. There was one time the totals for the two were exactly the same: $35.77 or something like that.
While cooking dinner last weekend I had the radio tuned to the local NPR station, which was doing their pledge drive. The announcer said “You’re running out of time” (to enter whatever drawing they were doing that day). When he said that I was reaching for the thyme, looked at the jar, and noticed that I was in fact running out of thyme.
Once looking for least populated cities, I read an article that the 2010 census reported that there where 2 cities called Bonanza, one in Utah and the other in Colorado. Both had just one official inhabitant.
We didn’t notice this until my wife was filling out some sort of school form that required you to put in a single letter in each box while listing your children in order.
Each one of the kids has the same number of letters in their name-
Oldest, 7 in her first name, 3 in her second, and 4 in her last = 14
Middle, 5 in his first name, 5 in his second, and 4 in his last = 14
Youngest, 6 in her first name, 4 in her second, and 4 in her last =14
Completely unplanned
Also, my sister was born Oct. 21st, my parents were married Nov. 21st, my brother was born Dec. 21st, and my mom’s due date for me was Jan. 21st. But my doctor was going to be on vacation that week so they pulled me out early (C-section).
I mentioned my high school girlfriend upthread. We were three years apart in age, and went to different schools.
We were talking once about teachers, and which ones we had that were our favorites. I was talking about my favorite teacher, and I mentioned that she had to wear a leg brace, as she had polio as a child, and one leg was shorter than the other.
She interrupted me to ask me the teacher’s name. I told her, and mentioned that she was my 7th grade English teacher.
She was the current English teacher that my girlfriend had (although my girlfriend was not in 7th grade…she was older than that).
We thought it was weird that we both had her at different schools, five years apart.
I’ve mentioned this before. In 1970 I was walking with a friend in the Los Angeles area when someone drove by and threw an egg that hit me. More than 20 years later, I was walking with the same friend in the San Francisco Bay area and someone drove by and threw an egg that hit me.
One amazing yet trivial coincidence I observed was accidentally meeting up a classmate of mine from elementary school, during spring break, at a small service station in the middle of nowhere, far from our home state. His family was driving south, same as ours. Not the same destination, just a random meetup.
Oh, there’s another one. But not that amazing and yet, still trivial! I was in an advanced math class while I was in high school. I filled the end papers of my textbook with stupid doodles. I did not sign my name anywhere in the book; had to return it at the end of the school year. A couple of years later, my then-gf was issued the same book, out of what must have been over 100 copies. She recognized my doodles and asked me if I drew them. Guilty as charged, but the crime was committed years ago!
Well, “Bonanza” is the perfect name for a boom-and-bust town (typically mining)…which is just the sort of place that achieves city status, then dwindles in population — so, not THAT unexpected, IMHO.
I grew up in a mid-sized town, and in elementary school had a close friend named Dennis.
Wife grew up in a faraway town, and in middle school had a close friend named Jenny.
After wife and I met in college, married and moved around some, we settled in an apartment in my town. One afternoon we were on our balcony, and saw a couple on the opposite balcony who looked eerily familiar. It was Dennis and Jenny, who had met in a different college, married, and randomly moved to the apartment across from ours.
None of us had had any contact with our old friends in the intervening years.
Back in landline days, I was semi-dating someone who we will call Amanda. She had just moved and gotten a new number. We had gotten into a bit of a tiff so I called her later.
The person on the other end said that she was Amanda but didn’t know who I was. I thought that she was being pretty petty and ridiculous by saying such a thing so we had an extended argument about how she needed to quit pretending like she didn’t know who I was…until it turned out that I had called the wrong number and like others in the thread, I transposed the last two digits. The person on the other end was also named Amanda.
Last summer, I decided to take my daughter out for lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant in town. It was very well regarded (the chef appeared on a Food Network cooking competition show), but I had never been there.
As we were going to be seated, I ran into a high school classmate of mine. Now I now live almost 200 miles from my home town, and he lives a couple of hours from where I live now. And the people he was visiting weren’t even in Schenectady.
Over a decade ago, I corrected the grammar on some graffiti in a public restroom.
Years later, my kid was out skateboarding with his friends, and he texts me “Subjective Case!”
I had no idea what he was talking about, and of course he left me twisting in the wind until I finally realized he’d been in the same stall as me <-(Objective Case) …that they’d never cleaned up.
I still don’t know whether he recognized my font, or if he just thought “Nobody could be this obnoxious, except my dad.”