Astonishing coincidences in your life

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

When my dad was a kid in the fifties he took tap-dancing lessons. He got quite good at it and was in a few shows, a bit of a novelty since he’s deaf. When he was about nine years old a magazine for disabled people took his picture while he was performing and ran a little article on him. He kept the magazine and we still have it.

In the picture you can see the audience, mostly kids. Years later, while we were moving, he got out the magazine and had a look at it. And realised that there, right in the front row, is my mum. He showed it to her, and she confirmed that yes, it’s her. I think that’s pretty cool.

42

I’ve had quite a few accidental meetings with friends and acquaintance in odd places.

A couple stand out.

I went to a school named Canadian Academy in Kobe, Japan in fifth and sixth grade. We moved back to Houston and I went back to school here. A month or so later, we had a new kid come to school - my friend David from my 6th grade class in Japan.

Right after college, I moved back to Houston and started working. An old friend of mine’s band had what promised to be a pretty neat gig at a popular music establishment, but their drummer could not be there, so he asked me to sit in. I did, it was a lot of fun, and I met the band’s singer, Bitsy, who was also my friend’s girlfriend.

I continued to visit my friend and Bitsy, and got to know her. About two years after I met her, we both attended some other friends’ wedding, and at the reception I introduced her to yet another friend, who was somewhat more on the ball than either Bitsy or I. He made the connection - she’s my niece (I have a rather extended family).

43

And before anybody gets twisted up on defining familial relations, let me say that she is my step-niece (who immediately took to calling me “Uncle Ringo”). Her grandmother was my stepmom.

I know, I know; some people recognize step relations, others don’t. I’ve quite a few and I take all the familly I can get - as do most of my “steps.”

44

My father’s name is Glenn, his wife (not my mother) name is Glenna.

My name is Mark. My wife’s name is Marsha (feminine version of Mark).

I have a son named Cris. Just plain Cris, not Christopher or any other longer name. His wife’s name is Chris. Again, just Chris, nothing else.

Chris’s maiden name is Elliott. That is the same middle name for me, my dad and Cris. When Cris was born, his mother did not know my middle name was Elliott. Cris was a result of a one night fling. My son Robert who I fathered from my first wife also has the middle name Elliott. I did not know of Cris when Robert was born. Robert’s half brother and half sister have the last name of Elliott. My neice Jennifer is married to a Kris. His middle name is Elliott as is their son Drake.

45

While my life has been liberally littered with coincidences, only one seems worthy of being seen in the same thread as stankow’s contribution, not to mention some of the other improbable tales.

Many years ago, when I was a much younger Balance (only 12), I was obsessed with two topics: girls and science (in that order). My pursuit of girls met with limited success (some things never change), so I pursued science one summer by persuading my folks to send me off to a science camp at LSU. I learned bugger-all about science on the trip, because the first day I met a lovely girl named Diana. We spent the remainder of the trip goofing off together, and both of us had our first kiss. Alas, it was not to be–she was from Connecticut, a world away from my rural Louisiana home, and vanished from my life after two all-too-brief weeks.

Fast forward eight years. I was an engineering student at LSU, still obsessed with girls and science. In pursuit of one of these obsessions (which one is left as an exercise to the reader), I went to a party in New Orleans. The next afternoon, I set out on the return trip, only to find the path to my chariot blocked by a wandering parade (this is known to happen in New Orleans). I never found out what the parade was about, but it involved many people dressed in black and white, carrying roses, and dancing in the street. I looked around for a break in the crowd, and something caught my eye. Without thinking, I called out “Diana!” and a young woman in the crowd turned my way–and recognized me. I grabbed a rose from a passing vendor, shoved some money at him and went to meet her. She was all in white, and I was all in black (as always), so we joined the parade for a while, then went off to catch up with each other. She had just transferred to Loyola University (in New Orleans). I racked up quite a few miles over the next two years, driving down for dates.

46

I swear this really happened. I’d been out of the military for about 6 months and after a TV program on telepathy or some other B/S like that, I randomly tried to get an Army buddy to call me on the phone, mentally.

He called the next day.I’ve no idea how he got the number or how he knew where I was living or anything.

Haven’t talked to him before or since that time, and I never mentioned anything about it to him at the time.

47

When I was at my grandfather’s funeral, my grandmother suddenly mentioned my girlfriend’s (now wife’s) last name (Noe, and even pronounced it correctly). I was surprised – she hadn’t known it. Turns out that was her mother’s maiden name, too. I hadn’t known that.

48

Mine:

In 1987, I was standing on a tour boat in the middle of a lake in China, and I heard a voice behind me that sounded just like a woman I knew at home. I turn around suddenly, but nope - not her. Still, bugged by the vocal similarity, I say “are you Welsh?” - she looks offended, and says no, why would you think that? “Well,” I reply, “I know a woman who is Welsh, and you sound just like her, and I thought it might be the accent. Her name is S- F-.” She looks stunned. S- F- is her best best best friend from childhood, they were honor attendants in each-others weddings, and as soon as she gets back from China, S- is coming for a visit (in England - S-F- and I both live on the east coast of the US). We took pictures of each other, and traded them through S-, later. Kinda cool.

And for a few of the more ‘odd’ coincidences:

My best friend called me (at work, which she abhorrs doing) the day I found out I was pregnant. Actually, about an hour after I found out for sure (dr office called). She and I aren’t the best at staying in touch, so she didn’t know we were trying, or anything (she’d moved two hours away, I saw her about twice a year, and we seldom talked in-between… we just always stayed friends anyway). So, anyhoo… She says “you have something important to tell me.” I say, no, not that I can think of (I’m not planning on telling until 12 weeks pregnant, so I don’t have to deal with possible miscarriage issues). She bugs and pesters me, saying “its okay, I already know, so you can tell me!” Finally, I cave - she’s my best friend after all. I say, “I’m pregnant” She replies (with glee), “I know, its a boy, and he has blue eyes” She had an intense dream the night before, where she saw him jumping on her bed, he told her who he was, and she noticed the blue eyes. While it isn’t dramatic odds of being right/wrong on gender or eyes (mine are blue, DH’s are brown), that she had the dream and called me the day I got the results… Not to mention being right about the eye color and gender.

So, pregnancy goes along fine fine fine (with a lot of really sucky symptoms, but healthy), and then one day my friend calls again. She says, “he ‘called’ again - he says he’s hungry, you need to eat more protien.” I say, “oh, uh, okay.” IMHO, I am eating a lot of protien, but figure more isn’t a big issue (I’d still be within the normal range recommended by my midwives). So I eat a bit more protien. Three weeks later, my blood pressure starts to go up. The first thing the midwives check is my diet. What do they say? Dear, dear, you aren’t eating NEARLY enough protien! You have to eat more than that! I had not properly estimated how much I was eating, and I needed to go higher in the range than I had. Once I ate enough, my BP stabilized. I felt kinda bad, since I’d been warned in advance…

And further on this friend of mine:

She moved to England. A few months after she left, one day I suddenly felt utterly bereft. I felt like all my friends had vanished, gone, and I wouldn’t see them ever again. I knew it was irrational, because I had other friends, and she was only transferred over there for three years, and was planning on returning for visits - in all likelihood, I’d see her exactly as often as before. Still, I felt it strongly enough that I ended up crying my heart out on epeepunk’s shoulder (something I rarely do). Two weeks later, I find out through unexpected channels that she’s been in a severe auto accident, brain trauma, but that channel had come to ME for info, and had no idea how to contact anyone. Turns out my friend had been in a coma for… you guessed it, two weeks. I’d freaked about being friendless the day of the accident. Her husband had a failure-to-cope and had not contacted me. So had her parents. :mad: We managed to track down where she was (no small feat, overseas and not having an address for her because she had just moved into her rented house). The day I found out about the accident and threw everything into motion to locate her (including being prepared to fly out IMMEDIATELY to be with her) was the day she came out of the coma. By the time I got the phone number of her hospital (three hours after discovering that something was up at all - my mom is brilliant!), she was conscious enough that they held the phone to her ear so she could hear my voice (she was on a ventilator so no talking back). I don’t know what she thought about it, but she cried (she doesn’t remember).

BTW, she made a full (nearly miraculous) recovery (they hadn’t expected her to live) - she has a slight tendency to forget if she’s already told you something, and she developed double-vision (her brain had corrected for an existing visual flaw and stopped correcting for it). That part isn’t a coincidence, but the rest of it… phew!

49

Me too!

…aaand that’s about it for my coincidences.

50

The internet makes the world a much smaller place. My coincidences (names changed to protect the paranoid):

In 1998, I started going out with a guy who was a huge Tori Amos fan (and a soulless bastard, but that’s besides the point.) I also liked Tori Amos alot, and became a bigger fan. We go to a concert in Washington, DC (we both lived in Kentucky), and stay with a friend of his he knew from online, Nicole. She was a quiet girl, and I didn’t speak to her much. In line, I began talking to the guy standing behind us, Sergei. He was a neat guy, and I noted his uncommon last name, and that he was a student at a university in Maryland. We lose him when we go inside the venue, and I begin talking to a girl named Debbie, who seems very nice. After the show, we head back to Kentucky, and the next day I look up Sergei’s information on the 'net. He was easy to find, and I emailed him. It turns out that the girl I’d talked to inside was who originally was supposed to attend the concert with him (on a date, of sorts), but someone else had also gotten her a much-coveted ticket, so she didn’t need his. They were in the same department at their university.

I get dumped the day after we get back from the trip. About two months later, I start dating a guy I worked with at my new job. He lives directly next door to the soulless bastard, whom I used to work with. They had also worked together in the past (and really didn’t like one another at all). Ok, this is Lexington, KY, so it’s no big deal. New guy, Shawn, is also a big Tori Amos fan. We date for about six weeks, and then call it quits. He discusses all the details of our relationship with a girl named Justine, <I>another</I> Tori Amos fan that he knows through a mailing list, and he’s gone to several concert with, who lives in the DC metro area. Fast forward: November, 1998. Sergei and I have been emailing for the past 8 months, and decide to meet in Akron to see a Tori Amos show. He’s bringing some friends with him that he’s met during the past few months. One of them is: Justine. I’d never met her before, but she knew all about me. What really sucked is that I had a huge crush on him, and he ended up dating Justine for over two years. She was also on a mailing list with the soulless bastard and Nicole, that I never really talked to.

I fall out of the whole Tori Amos scene when the tour’s over, only keeping in touch with a few people sporadically. I become involved with the much different They Might Be Giants community (yeah, I’m a huge geek). I make alot of neat friends. When bloggers become popular (sometime in about 2000?), I get one, as does a few of my friends. My friend Beth was very into Kids in the Hall. One day, I get an email. It’s from Nicole, who I’d neither talked to nor seen since I first met her. She’d found a link to my page from Beth’s, and we became friends. We had a great deal of bonding material over the treatment the soulless bastard gave both of us.

And one more, unrelated to the rest:
I was at a Tori Amos concert in Cleveland, and start talking to the random guy beside me. He’s nice enough, so I give him my business card when I leave, so he can email me. We become friends, and a few months later he starts dating this girl. He sends me her picture. I recognize her instantly… she’s someone I know (online) from They Might Be Giants stuff.

I’m happy to finally have all this in writing. :wink:

51

(1) My husband Steve and I left NY to go on a hiking/camping trip to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. We were hiking up a trail when we met a party with horses coming down the trail. My husband was ahead of me (as usual–I’m a slow hiker) and I hear a voice say, “Steve?” and my husband saying, “Hey, good to see you!” Turns out to be a former co-worker (I met my husband at work) also on vacation. Our co-worker called a mutual friend at work afterward and when I got back from vacation, everyone was asking me about bumping into Rich miles away from home in the middle of the wilderness.

(2) My husband and I had just moved to NJ. A friend of ours grew up in the town we moved to and introduced us to her parents who still live there. We were exchanging phone information and the friend’s mother asked us how to spell our last name, S—. and her husband said, “You know, it’s spelled just like the name of that football player at Cornell.” And I said, “Uh, Harold S—?” And they looked at me and I said, “That’s Steve’s father.”

Turns out they went to Cornell at the same time as Steve’s parents and Steve’s dad had dated one of their friends for years. They showed us a picture of them. Very weird.

52

I play in a Saturday soccer comp. I don’t really know any of the guys but I’ve made friends with them. I mentioned today that I won’t be able to play for the next two weeks because I’m going to New Zealand. I mentioned that I was lucky to get the tickets because I booked only yesterday for a flight into Christchurch on Wednesday evening.

One of the guys asked if I was flying Qantas. I am. He says he’s going to be on the flight as well…

as the pilot. :eek:

53

kittenblue’s post reminded me of another story. A few years ago, I was doing work experience (for about a couple of weeks or so) at the local Future Shop. Nothing too heavy; just stcikering CDs, putting them on the shelf, repackaging CDs after customers listened to them, getting rid of the excess labels, helping customers, etc.

One of the people who worked there was named Lisa. I got to know a bit about her in my short time there. Once, she asked me what my last name was. I told her, then asked what hers was. She told me that I probably wouldn’t be able to spell it, then told me what it was. To her amazment, I promptly spelled it correctly.

Of course, she wanted to know how I could have spelled it correctly on the first try. (note: the surname in question is Maniquet) It was the last name of one of my old junior high school friends, I told her. Her eyes grew wide at that, and she asked if by chance my old friend was named Mike. I told her yes; his name was Mike Maniquet. (I’d always liked him; seemed friendly enough, at any rate)

Turns out that she was Mike’s cousin. That was certainly a surprise.
I have another story, slightly different. In junior high, I knew these two guys named Nick and Paul in my grade who went around like the best of friends. (for all I knew, they could have been best buddies) When I got to know some guy a grade lower than me who played the clarinet really well, it turned out that his name was Nick, and his best buddy (back then, at least) was called Paul. So, two units of two best friends with the exact same first names… that’s kind of freaky.

All four of them went to the same school, and were only separated by a year. At the time, it seemed like such a cool coincidence. Now, I don’t know… it still seems good. Hey, having them separated by a year is one of those :eek: factors, when you think about it.

Then again, I believe my brother knows someone named Christine Magee. (no, NOT the president of Sleep Country Canada [sup]TM[/sup]) If I’m right (I saw the name on a CRU list, and that’s the only Christine he knows from there, I think), then my mother doesn’t like her much for some reason. I don’t care what she thinks of her (actually, I don’t really care what my mom thinks about most things, but that’s another story) because I’ve met her, and she seems very nice.

F_X

54

Oh, yes: the two (or four) in question in the above post?

Nick Turner and Paul Gallagher were in my grade.

Nick Krusek and Paul McMahon were in the grade below me.

F_X

55

For this one you need some background information. When my mom lived in Kentucky when she was younger she had a best friend named Jeannie. Jeannie ended up getting raped and having a mental breakdown because of it. She was on medication, but everytime she would start doing well her parents would change her meds so she’d be worse. Her parents, especially her mom, are completely crazy and assholes as well. For instance, Jeannie is a paranoid schitzophrenic, and they would tell her that the yard was booby trapped so she’d be afraid to leave. Well we didn’t know about her parents being so crazy and visited them on a trip up to KY, and everything seemed fine. A while later my mom’s mom (who was friends with Jeannie’s parents) got a call never to come up there again. Since then my grandmother has called social services to try to get help, but to no avail.

Ok, on with the story. My mom, step-dad, step-sister, my cousin, and I went to the Ruby Tuesday’s in Lexington while we were on vacation. The restaurant was empty except for us and the table 2 feet from us. My step-dad and mom were talking to eachother about how annoying it was that the place was empty and we were basically right on top of these people. I looked over and noticed that we were right next to Jeannie and her parents! I nudged my mom and told her to look, and as she turned around Jeannie says “Hi Tammy.”

My mom didn’t know if she should talk because Jeannie’s parents would probably punish her later for it, but Jeannie later said that her dad said it was okay.

The conversation went on seemingly normally until my mom and step-dad went up to the salad bar. Jeannie’s mom, Eunice, followed them up there and started calling my mom a bitch and saying that we had followed them, and a bunch of other crazy stuff. So my mom started calmly telling her that it didn’t happen that way, but she didn’t accept it. My step-dad heard what was going on and walked over there and started cussing Eunice out. Eunice finally said “WE WERE HERE FIRST!!”

Later as they were leaving, Eunice sent her husband back in there to say something to my step-dad. Apparently she accused him of hitting her (!). My step-dad obviously denied it, but admitted to calling her a bitch, but made it clear that she called my mom one first.

That experience was truly odd to say the least. Later we realised that it was a good thing that my grandma didn’t come with us as planned, because she would’ve started a fight when Eunice started her ranting. We just couldn’t believe that of all the restaurants in Lexington, at the slow time of the day (3 PM), and at a place pretty much on the other side of town from Jeannie’s house, we ended up not two feet away from them.

56

not sure how to describe this one. I was in the same freshman class in a small high school as some chick. Chick1. She was in the popular crowd and I was a geek. Never got the time of day out of that crowd. She moved away later. At University, I got involved in the radio station and met chick2. Chick2 then graduated and moved away. Didn’t know her well, but we talked some and saw each other around the station. Later during University, met chick1 again at Thanksgiving because my recently divorced father was dating her mother. She didn’t remember me, and I didn’t remember her, but I sure remembered the bitchy crowd she hung with. Chick1 found out what University I was at, and asked if I knew Chick2. Which, actually I did, what a coincidence.

Fast forward a few years, and I was the tour guide for a group of professional photographers to Lhasa, Tibet. During that tour, I ran into Chick2 on the street. Asked her if she knew Chick1. Chick2 said “yes, what a coincidence, how do you know Chick1?”

“Well, she’s now my step sister.”

That was wierd.

57

::::bump::::
This just happened this weekend.

My cousin Patti, who lives in NC with her husband travelled up to Chicago to see their son graduate from some Naval school up there. They decide to go out to dinner in a restaurant somehwere in Chicago and they run into our mutual cousin Carol, who actually lives in Wisconsin but was in town for the weekend.

58

When I was 18, I went to college 1,000 miles away and (eventually) joined a fraternity. One day it came up that one of my frat brothers, who lived in the room next to me, had grown up in New Jersey. I’m from Massachusetts, but my mother grew up in New Jersey. This was at college in Chicago.

Turns out he had grown up in the town next to where my mom had. I told him the name of my mother’s hometown – that happened to be where his mother grew up.

I told him the name of my mother’s high school. That’s where his mother went to school.

I told him what year my mother graduated. That’s when his mother graduated.

I called my mother. “Do you remember so-and-so from high school?” She said “Of course! We were best friends! I haven’t talked to her in about 30 years!”

59

When I was living i Utah and a long-ago friend of mne (whom I ad lost touch with) was living in Washington, D.C., an into her in the middle of Times Square.

Haven’t seen her since.

60

I have a billion of these.

  • When we moved to Montreal, a short time before we moved in to our old place we visited some old friends of my dad’s who lived in the townships. They had some other old friends over, who turned out to be our neighbours-to-be from three doors down.

  • These same old friends from the townships: the guy is named Dave. One time when he was a youngun, he was on the lookout at Mount Royal with his lady-love. Somebody photographed them smooching, and used the print (without their permission…) as the cover of a safe-sex booklet. (That really impressed the young lady’s parents, I’m told.) This booklet was distributed continent-wide, including many hundreds of copies distributed by a young volunteer at the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in SF. This young lady later decided to drop her English lit. major and take up medicine. So she came to study for her doctorate at McGill U. in Montreal. Where she met a musician whom she would later marry, and three years after that, give birth to me… oh yes, my dad would later introduce her to his friend Dave.

-I’m friends with LaurAnge, and I know at least three of her other acquaintances from three completely different places: one is the EvilExRoommate whom I met at Project 10, one is Big Gay Pat whom I met at an Etcetera dance, and one is Caspian whom I met at a series of parties. Actually, I’ve met, by coincidence, a number of people who know EvilExRoommate.

-As someone who would grow up to create an award-winning website on the Montreal metro system and to work for the STM, it only seems appropriate that I was born 15 years to the day after it was inaugurated (14/10/1966), of parents who met on the #80 Av. du Parc bus.

-When I was in Madrid this summer, I went out to a dance party called the Shangay Tea Dance. Now, this institution publishes a little newspaper. It so happened that the night I was there, the current edition had a cover story on a DJ from Montreal named Tiga - who happens to be the brother of the first guy my age I ever came out to.

-A little later on in Madrid, I ran into my Spanish teacher, completely by chance. Okay, it’s not that impressive to hear, but really, we’re talking a completely different country - what are the chances?

-(This one’s grim.) I was in this teacher’s class on Sept 11. We had heard a vague report at the beginning of the class, but we continued with the class anyway.

We started our unit on air travel that day.

Including the word “estrellarse,” which means “to crash.”

Or “to spangle oneself with stars.”

:eek: