Coincidences you have experienced - recently or not so recently

In My Humble Opinion
1

What are some of the interesting or strange coincidences you have experienced in your life? Mine are not that great but hopefully some of you have some truly extraordinary stories to tell.

This thread is inspired by a black cat crossing my path, in a round-about way. On Friday afternoon last week, things were quiet at work, so I was posting to some other message boards, helping foreign students with questions about English. I happened to answer a question about the phrase “A black cat crossed my path”. I explained that “crossed my path” is not the most common way to talk about movement but it is associated with the superstition about black cats etc. An hour later, I was riding my bike home when, yes, a black cat ran out across the road in front of me. The weird thing is, after six months living in this town, I have only seen about two or three cats outside - not many people have pets and they usually keep them inside if they do I suppose. So the chance of seeing a cat at all was small, the chance of a black one crossing my path - well, lucky I am not at all superstitious.

Another one happened to me a few years ago. I was teaching maths and I had a few spare minutes at the end of the lesson, so off the top of my head I decided to quickly teach the students about the Vigenère cipher, a simple way to encrypt an alphabetic message. It’s easy to explain, and there are usually a few kids in any class who really get into it. I asked the students for a keyword (to encrypt/decrypt the message) and a message. They suggested something innocent and I started explaining how to encrypt, letter by letter.

First letter of the encrypted text was F. The cleverest kid in the class breaks out in a big grin for some reason. Second letter, U. Now the kid can barely contain himself. Third letter, C. The fourth letter was K, as you can probably guess. The encrypted text ended up being something like “FUCKHWSDMHO” - obviously random but those first four letters really stood out. The students thought I had done it on purpose! I started suspecting *they *had carefully chosen the keyword and message but there was no way that happened. The odds of a four-letter English word appearing are probably not that low. But the odds of a word like “fuck” coming out first? So now I can say I wrote FUCK in big letters on a white board in front of 11 year old kids.

Like I said, not that exciting, so please share your most amazing coincidences.

2

Yesterday my niece and youngest sister (ages 6 and 9) were out back screaming bloody murder. After I went outside and made sure they were alright, I told them to quiet down before someone called the cops, as they sounded like someone was killing them.

About 2 minutes later we come inside, go into the living room, and standing right inside the door was an officer. My niece and sister’s face went real pale, and before anyone could say anything they started stammering about how’d they wouldn’t scream anymore unless something was wrong. It took every bit of will power I had not to start laughing.

He assured them he wasn’t there about them, finished up his business with me, and left. I just loved the timing on that one, as these particular girls have a bad habit of being overly loud when outside.

3

My husband’s ex-wife is from the same state I’m from.

It turns out we had been at the same house parties, way back.

Her birthday is the same day as mine.

Her grandparents live in the same 300-person town that my parents live in. Their houses are about a mile apart. This town is neither in the state we’re from nor within 500 miles of where we lived when we met.

None of this had ANYTHING to do with how my husband and I met… we met via eHarmony.

4

I’ve told this before, but it’s so much fun to tell.

My birthday is November 1st. My great nephew was due to be born on November 1st, 2007. He wasn’t. But a woman in my office gave birth to her boy on the 1st. His father’s name is Gavin. My great nephew, Gavin, was born on the 3rd.

About 6 months later, I met a woman with a 6 month old baby. His name is Gavin. Huh, “about” 6 months old? Born on November 2nd, as it turns out.

There was another baby boy born around that time. His name is Jade. My great nephew’s father’s name is Jayd.

5

I’ve told my story before. So here it is again! In 8th grade, I was that kid who always had her nose stuck in a book. I was really into short stories, classic lit, and poetry, and for some reason decided it would be fun to memorize some poetry. (An older boy, who could reel off a lot of poems off the top of his head, inspired me, I guess.) So I set out to memorize “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” and got almost halfway through…Jump ahead a few months, and in English class, you will not believe what our assignment was. To memorize the opening stanzas of “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”. And we all had to take turns standing up in front of the class and reciting them. Uncanny. I had already done it, all on my own! The funny thing: no one believed me. I told my parents about this remarkable coincidence and being non-caring dolts just said, “huh” before resuming their regularly scheduled activities.

I also dated two men, years apart, named Raimon, and both had been born in the same city in Germany.

6

Not me but a friend of mine. She was recently visiting her parents in her home town and decided to get some pictures of the houses she grew up in. The second one, where she lived from 6 to 18, had an unusual window at the back, with a horse in relief, so she knocked on the door to see if they would let her go round to take a photo.

After my mate introduced herself as someone who lived in the house when she was a kid the house owner asked “Are you ‘my friend’s name’?” And on receiving a “Yes” produced a tiny silver bracelet they had found while digging in the garden only the week before. On it was engraved my mate’s name and date of birth – it was her christening bracelet.

7

My sister-in-law and I put a lot of thought into naming our children and they were all born in the same years although the sexes were reversed. Does that make sense?

Their boy and our girl were born in one year and two years later our boy and their girl were born.

In spite of our thoughtfulness to give them “special” names all four of them have the first and second most common names of those years.

Hive mind?

8

I went to Amsterdam in my early twenties, and did what most people in their early twenties do there. Stayed at a place called Bob’s Youth Hostel, that was famous for their hash and eggs. They also had hash browns. Anyhoo, I start off the morning with a little hash, and hear some people saying that they are going to take the Heinekin Brewery tour. I asked if I could tag along. We took the tour, had some beers, and after they decided to do some touristy thing that I had already done, so we split ways. Never saw them again. They were from upstate NY, I from Minnesota, two ships that pass, never would see them again. But I had snapped some pics of the tour and had a good time. Fast forward a decade I was looking through the photos, and I held one up to my wife. Hey, this looks a lot like your coworker Rodney. She thought so to. So the next day she asked him if he had ever stayed at Bob’s. Sure enough. Turns out he met a Minnesota girl and followed her to MN. Random pics taken when I was stoned and drunk FTW.

9

It’s not an earth-shattering coincidence - but odd - Most recently my husband was trying to remember the name of an author he’d heard on the radio before we left on vacation. As he couldn’t remember, I contacted the station and asked who it was.

We went to a bookstore and enquired - they didn’t have a copy - but the bookseller wrote the name of the author and his upcoming book on a sticky note - which was inserted into a book I bought and I subsequently used as a book mark.

Upon finishing the book I looked at the jacket and there was an endorsement of the book by the author who my husband couldn’t remember! Then I went to an extremely remote grocery store to buy a new book - of the ten books they had for sale - one was the very book my husband had wanted in the first place. FWIW he hated it!

10

About three years ago or so my wife and I decided to stop playing World of Warcraft because it was taking away too much of our time and because we were getting tired of the antics of our guild leader. As part of that, we left our guild, and my wife, feeling like she hadn’t made her dislike of the guild leader appear strong enough, joined a guild run by his bitter enemy as a final F-U before quitting.

Fast forward to a few months ago, and we’ve made close friends with another couple. In chatting with the husband, we found that he also played World of Warcraft…and was on the same server (out of over 100 servers) as we’d played on…and then found that he also played in that same guild (out of about 50 or so on the server) that my wife had joined as an F-U to the old guild leader. He knew many of our former guild members, including the loathed guild leader…

11

I used to have an old style tracfone, not a slide or flip.

Once on a walk with a friend her phone rang and she saw it was from my number. My phone, still in the confines of my pocket had its buttons randomly bumped that opened my phonebook and dialled my friend.

Same thing happened while out with my husband. My phone was bumped and jiggled into dialling his cell phone from my purse.

It used to call my parents the same way, mightily freaking them out and spurring them to think I was crank calling them…:dubious::rolleyes:

:stuck_out_tongue:

12

This summer, my daughter and I went to a horse show. While there we saw a woman walking a dog who was an exact replica of our own dog – I mean, really indistinguishable. My daughter went up to her and said, “Your dog looks exactly like our dog Ginger.” The woman got a very funny look on her face and said, “Your dog is named Ginger?” We said yes, and she said, “Sit, Ginger,” and her dog sat. Yes, two identical-looking dogs who happened to be given the same name. (By the way, neither one has reddish hair – their coats are off-white, which actually happens to be about the color of fresh ginger root.)

My wife’s brother has the same first and middle name as me (although he spells the middle name differently).

I met my wife after moving to Philadelphia; before that, I lived near Washington, DC. It turned out that her parents live right near where I used to work when I lived there – I used to drive about a block past their house every day.

13

My mother swears by this story from waaaaay back – it was while she was a lifeguard a beach on the Eastern Seaboard shortly after WWII. But it sounds like an urban legend.

A gentleman lost his false teeth in the surf. Lots of people helped search, my mother included, but of course it was futile trying to feel for them with one’s feet.

The next year, the same gentleman returned to the beach. At some point, he waded out into the surf again and stepped on his own false teeth. After rinsing the sand and salt off, they supposedly still fit into his mouth. I don’t know if they were made of studier stuff back then or not; I have a hard time imagining they wouldn’t have been ground down after a year in the surf, but that’s the tale she says she personally witnessed.

This next story may not count as a certain amount of it my be from my unconscious mind. I once went meteor-watching with friends. We wanted to get far from city lights, so we drove west into the Blue Ridge mountains. We kept making turns and going down more and more rural-looking roads, winding away from light every time.

Finally in the middle of God-knows-where, almost lost, we got out and set up our lawn chairs and blankets. (It was cold.) We watched for a few hours, got up, packed away our stuff, and drove away…wandering through the unknown roads until we found something familiar, and then drove home.

Then I discovered my wallet was missing.

Well, hell. We had no idea how to get back to the unmarked place we had chosen because it was remote and dark. But we decided to try.

We drove and drove around in the pre-dawn darkness, squinting at treelines and cudgeling our memories to try and recognize patterns. Does that look familiar? Maybe that one?

Finally we were going pretty slowly past yet another empty field, feeling despair, and I suggested it looked familiar – well, as familiar as anything else so far. My friend wanted to stop, but I said “Not yet.” Further…a little further…here.

He stopped the car. I opened the passenger side door, intending to go search the field on foot. But I never even got out of the car.

My wallet was lying on the shoulder of the road within reach of where I sat with the door open. I just picked it up and said. “Okay.”

We were completely flabbergasted about the “luck.” My friend hardly believed it, and he’d been driving. My sense of direction isn’t very good and I often can’t find my way back to places I’ve been until I’ve made many repeat trips; while it’s possible I was just navigating back to the spot unconsciously, most of my acquaintances laugh at the idea.

14

I was reading a thread about Groundhog Day today, so I decided to watch it. Finished up the movie, put on the latest episode of Smallville, and in reference to something repeating itself Tess (or was it Lois?) said, “This isn’t Groundhog Day.”

Another one I think I might’ve mentioned here before, was when I was warming up for a soccer game in middle school. Everyone was taking shots on net, and I went into the net to retrieve my ball. I bent down to pick it up, and when I turned around to head back out of the net, I unconsciously made a sweeping half-circle in front of my face with the arm that wasn’t holding the ball. It just so happened that I perfectly timed a deflection of a ball about to smash into my face.

15

I lived in NW Indiana but went to college at WVU. After graduation, I moved back home and was working downtown Chicago in a totally crap job as an office assistant (thank you, liberal arts degree). For some reason, my college roommate called me at work one day and we were bsing about stuff when she mentioned that she had heard that a mutual friend who had lived on our dorm floor, Jay, had moved to Chicago. She had no idea where he was working or living, just someplace in the city. That afternoon, my boss had me deliver a package to Prudential Plaza (big skyscraper for those of you not familiar with Chicago). As I was riding up in the elevator, it stopped before my floor and who should get on but Jay. It turns out that he worked at the place I was delivering the package to.

16

Earlier this year, I stopped by the local used book store to supplement reading material for a beach trip. The first book that caught my eye was Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. I had heard of the film so I thought I’d give the book a try.

I move over a shelf and see a book about Asperger syndrome. As several shrinks seem to feel I have mild Aspergers, I pick it up to see if it’s something I want to read. The book is called Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison and it’s about a young man who has suffered with it his whole life but wasn’t diagnosed until he was an adult. I decide to get it and when I get home, I read an excerpt on the back which says, “his odd habits—an inclination to blurt out non sequiturs, avoid eye contact, dismantle radios, and dig five-foot holes (and stick his younger brother, Augusten Burroughs, in them)—had earned him the label “social deviant.””

Yes, I purchased two books, completely randomly, about two different topics that just happened to be written by brothers.

17

This happened about 18 years ago. I was visiting my older son in Seattle with my wife and younger son. We went to visit the Japanese garden there and while I was admiring a goldfish, my younger son came up and said there was a man who wanted to talk to me. It seems that YS was wearing a McGill blazer and this man had asked if he was a student there. “No, but my father is a professor there.” “Oh, could I talk to him?” So I went to talk to him. He explained to me that his son was a student there. Well there are probably over 20,000 students there. Then he asked me what department I was in. “Math”, I answered. “Oh my son is in math, a graduate student.” Well, there were 50 or so. Then he told me his son’s name. It turned out he was my PhD student! My last such, in fact. The father didn’t live in Seattle either. His daughter did and he was on his way from Alaska to Texas where he lived and had stopped to visit his daughter. I still consider this a most amazing coincidence. We had to be both in Seattle visiting a child, both decided on the same day to visit the Japanese garden and my YS had to decide to wear a McGill blazer on that day.

Here is another one. About ten years ago, visiting my YS in Boston we went to a free open air concert given at a fort in an island in Boston Harbor. We sat down on a blanket in the grass. A guy sitting in front of me came over to ask where we had gotten the program. He had a T-shirt that identified him as the publisher of a small independent magazine (called Ferment, not avaible free on-line). He was a friend from HS that I had lost track of over the years, but had met him once about ten years before this. I realized who it had to be (I had no memory of what he now looked like). He didn’t live in Boston any more than I did. Just happened to be visiting and decided to take in a free concert.

18

Once I was talking to a school counselor about a tornado that made the power go out. As I told her about the power outage, the lights in the school went off. She yelled “How did you do it?”

Then there’s this:

http://wikibin.org/articles/baader-meinhof-phenomenon.html

It happened to me and yes, it did involved repeated references to a certain German terror group.

19

The other day I was carrying a large box halfway across my campus when it occurred to me that I should probably phone the friend I was meeting to tell her I was going to meet her somewhere slightly different. I put the box down and reached for my phone, at which point it started to ring because she was calling me. Not that major a coincidence because it made sense for her to be calling me at that moment, but if I hadn’t put the box down when I did I probably would have missed her call.

20

In elementary school, I had a close friend (let’s call him Jim). My wife also had a close friend in her elementary school (let’s call her Jody) hundreds of miles away. Many years later, we’ve met in college, gotten married and settled into our first apartment. Looking off our balcony at the opposite apartment, we discover Jim and Jody, who are also married. Keep in mind, neither of us have seen our respective friends since 6th grade.

I think the odds of my close childhood friend marrying her close childhood friend and moving not only to the same city, but the same apartment complex (and directly across from ours) are very small.