# Examples of improbable real-life events **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 31, 2017, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479 "2017-07-31T04:24:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/61 "2017-08-02T18:27:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The weirdest coincidence that ever happened to me: I was driving across country. I stopped at a CD store in New Jersey and bought some used CD’s. One of them was a David Cross comedy performance. Keep in mind this wasn’t some popular recently released CD. > > A few hours later I was driving along, listening to that David Cross CD. I saw a bookstore and I decided to stop and check it out. I parked my car, turned it off, and walked into the store - and they were playing the same track of the same David Cross CD I had just been listening to in my car. > [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > Less of a coincidence because of how popular radio works, but the same thing essentially happened to me in my car. > > I was driving home from an errand when a comedy bit was being played on the XM Comedy channel. Had to go back out and do another errand, and the part that was playing was the exact next line of the bit that I heard a few hours before. Continuing the “improbable radio coincidences” theme, back in the late 80’s, when I was in college, my roommate and I used to watch _Doctor Who_ on PBS, 10:00 p.m. Saturday nights. Now, this was before NuWho, when the show was just a quirky British sci fi series, with a small niche following (in the US, I mean). PBS didn’t even have the whole series, so what you got was, mainly, reruns of Tom Baker and Peter Davison episodes. It was relatively obscure, in other words. So imagine my surprise one Saturday night as I was listening to the radio on my way back to campus after visiting my parents, who lived 70 miles away. I had left home too late to make back on time, which I realized when the deejay announced the time: “It’s 10:04. But you didn’t want to watch that _Doctor Who_ rerun, anyway.” ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/62 "2017-08-02T18:44:02Z")
Oh, gosh, there are many that I personally have experienced. A couple of different times, at different points on the globe, meeting someone from my very tiny small town where I was born, who knew my family, etc. Sitting on the deck of a river cruise in Germany, overhearing someone at the next table talking about something at the library and describing where it was - which is 2 blocks from my home. They lived just one street over from me. On the same cruise, at dinner with strangers, finding out that one of the stranger’s roommates in college had dated my roommate in college. Living in LA, one of my favorites is going to see a movie in a theater, and then running into one of the stars at the grocery store that night on the way home. And on and on… ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/63 "2017-08-02T23:46:51Z")
Hitch hiking in Japan way back in 1975 (when few foreigners were to be seen outside the main cities), I was in Sapporo and ran into two girls I went to high school with. Spent a few weeks on the beach in Goa, India. Meet this Australian girl with a very distinctive voice. Hard to describe the sound, but it bordered on being some kind of speech defect. (She also had no pigment in her nipples, but that’s not part of the story.) A few years later my wife and I are on a ship leaving Shanghai for Hong Kong and I hear _the voice_. I walk around the corner, and it is her! Taking the long way in to the Mt. Everest Base Camp in Nepal, I run into an Australian heading the same way and we decide to hike together. A couple of weeks later, we are taking the flight out of Lukla airport so we have to show our passports. I look at his and it turns out we were born on the same day. Years later I’m visiting my parents in Los Angeles. I’m “home” for only a few weeks so I don’t bother getting a driver’s license and have to take the bus downtown to get my Taiwan visa. This same Aussie guy gets on the bus! ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/64 "2017-08-02T23:50:51Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > - A congressman is revealed to have texted pictures of his crotch to various women. His name is Anthony **Weiner**. (And it’s not even pronounced like “Whiner”). > [@Okrahoma](#): > > Just because “Dick” is short for “Richard” is no reason to giggle like Beavis and Butthead about it. Sorry–I just realized it’s only funny if it’s a Democrat. Carry on, then! ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/65 "2017-08-03T00:03:56Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Sorry–I just realized it’s only funny if it’s a Democrat. Carry on, then! Again, the funny/interesting thing is the combination of the name Weiner and the sending of crotch pictures. If his name was Dick it would have been less funny/interesting since that name is so ubiquitous. If someone’s name is Dick and there are no crotch pictures - that’s where the Beavis/Butthead-style giggling comes in. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/66 "2017-08-03T05:57:38Z")
I think the Trump presidency includes lots and lots of elements that fit the criteria (unless of course it can only be based on name puns): Trump is supported by the Christian right, but he’s thrice divorced and there’s no real record of him having been religious prior to running for office. He runs on an anti-immigration platform, including reducing the number of legal immigrants to the country and is married to an immigrant who appears to have worked illegally on a tourist visa when she first came here. He makes cyber-security a talking point on the platform, but his staff, including his head of cyber-security get taken in by an email fishing scam. He runs on a platform of being for coal miners, but in an interview once said, " If I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines. But most people don’t have the imagination — or whatever — to leave their mine. They don’t have “it.”" ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/67 "2017-08-03T15:47:04Z")
In the eighties there was a mayor or Nashville or congressman caught in an extramarital dalliance (he held both positions; I don’t remember which he was when it happened). Anyway, his name was Bill Boner. ---
**Author:** ![Scribble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scribble/32/3317_2.png) [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/68 "2017-08-03T16:05:32Z")
I once knew a guy named John Johns. He was a plumber. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/69 "2017-08-03T16:45:25Z")
If that’s the kind of thing you’re interested in, see the Wikipedia article on “[aptronyms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym)”. ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/70 "2017-08-03T17:02:46Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > If that’s the kind of thing you’re interested in, see the Wikipedia article on “[aptronyms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym)”. Thank you. Never knew what it was called. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/71 "2017-08-03T18:16:29Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > If that’s the kind of thing you’re interested in, see the Wikipedia article on “[aptronyms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym)”. In our family, we call it “cognomen syndrome” when someone is named this way. I noticed a guy named Tennys listed in the tennis lineup the other day. “Although Tennys Sandgren is a tennis player from Tennessee, he is actually named after his great-grandfather who did not play tennis and was not from Tennessee.” > **[Tennys Sandgren](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennys_Sandgren)** > > Tennys Loren Sandgren II (/ˈtɛnɪs ˈsændɡrən/ TEN-iss SAND-grən; born July 22, 1991) is an American professional tennis player. He has achieved a career-high ATP singles ranking of No. 41 on January 14, 2019. He broke into the top 100 of the ATP rankings toward the end of 2017 after competing mainly on the ATP Challenger Tour. He played two years of college tennis at the University of Tennessee before launching his professional career. > Sandgren's parents, South African Lia Lourens and American ... ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/72 "2017-08-03T18:26:09Z")
[Dr Catt](http://housecallsvets.com/), veterinarian. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/73 "2017-08-03T19:26:44Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > Edwin Booth, John Wilk Booth’s cousin saved Todd Lincoln’s life. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > It was Robert Lincoln not Todd Also, Edwin Booth was John Wilkes Booth’s brother, not his cousin. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/74 "2017-08-03T19:54:58Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > [Dr Catt](http://housecallsvets.com/), veterinarian. [Dr.Suess](http://health.usnews.com/doctors/anne-suess-492830), children’s doctor ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/75 "2017-08-03T20:17:06Z")
When I was a kid, we went to a dentist named R. J. Loos. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/76 "2017-08-03T20:22:07Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > > [@kayaker](#): > > > > [Dr Catt](http://housecallsvets.com/), veterinarian. > > [Dr.Suess](http://health.usnews.com/doctors/anne-suess-492830), children’s doctor I wonder if she deliberately chose pediatrics, knowing that name would amuse the children and be good for marketing. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/77 "2017-08-03T20:29:39Z")
How about an improbable sports story? Kurt Warner, Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former Arena League QB, now about to become the Super Bowl champion! [ul] [li]1-year starter at D-IAA Northern Iowa [/li][li]Undrafted, goes to Arena League [/li][li]Gets picked up by the Rams, a doormat for decades [/li][li]Hyped QB goes down, becomes the starter of 4-12 team [/li][li]Suddenly has record numbers, wins NFL MVP [/li][li]Then wins Super Bowl, setting records and winning the MVP [/li][li]A few years later, nearly does the same thing with the Arizona Cardinals, another historic doormat[/li][/ul] Okay, what hack wrote that story? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/78 "2017-08-03T20:34:26Z")
Tim Tebow has had a mostly mediocre baseball career. But he hit a HR on the first pitch he saw in the Instructional League, in his first AB with his first minor league team, and on the first day he was promoted to his second team. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/79 "2017-08-03T21:00:55Z")
Here’s one improbable event, even though it’s not all that world-shaking, from this very message board: a poster named **Arkcon** asked if anyone could identify a particular episode of the old PBS series **Mystery!**. About an hour later, I’m on the SDMB and see [the thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=536207). Now, I have watched exactly one episode of **Mystery!** in my entire life (okay, two, since it was a two-parter). But, I do remember it well, so I check the thread, and holy cow, it’s the very same episode. I particularly remember the unique name of the main character, so it was easy to search for the episode; it turned out that he was played by Ian McKellan. Anyway. Pretty unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2017, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479/80 "2017-08-03T21:15:25Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Republicans have some funny names too. For a lesser example, look at the president who tried to win the cold war with high tech weapons with science fiction names. His own name sounds like Ray gun. > > But my favorite was the republican majority whip, one of the leaders of the macho warmonger party, whose name was Dick Armey. If you think that’s a coincidence, how about this: Ronald Wilson Reagan Six letters in his first name, six letters in his middle name and six letters in his last name. 666:eek: Regarding strange names of famous people, a comedian once joked that he was sure WWII was made up because all the names sounded so fake. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/examples-of-improbable-real-life-events/792479.md?page=5)