So here I am down in Costa Rica doing IT for a gambling website. I got a job down here after a brief but very helpful stay in a treatment center for alcoholism. The treatment center was in Arizona.
I go into the web developers room to discuss a possible problem with the web site. We are trying to figure out exactly what is going wrong when in walks Donnie. Donnie who was in treatment with me in AZ. Donnie whom I had never seen before going to the treatment center. Donnie who lives in New Jersey while I am from Las Vegas.
One of the reasons I hate living where I do is that people ascribe all sorts of coincidences to “It’s a small world”. Look, honey, this is a small area and there aren’t all that many people here. SO STUNNING that you know one of the 75 members of my family still living in this area!
Which is diametrically opposed to the guy I met in Homestead, FL.
A friend was talking about a friend of his “from one of those M states”.
“Jim, this is Rachel. She’s from one of those M states.”
“Which M state?”
“Minnesota.”
“Oh? I’m from Minnesota.”
“Then you know where St. Cloud is?”
“Whoa. My MOTHER is from St. Cloud.”
“Well, if you know where St. Cloud is you probably know where Foley is, right?”
Man, if you could’ve seen his jaw at this point. . . . “My DAD is from Foley.”
Which is when I actually looked at the name embroidered on his shirt. “Are you related to Ida?”
“Holy shit. That’s my AUNT!!”
“Your aunt? My neighbor!”
I love that story. I just wish I could come across something similar walking through Central Park.
A few years ago, while living in D.C. and on vacation in Virginia, I started chatting with a guy who turned out to be the brother of a woman I’d used to know when I’d lived in L.A. and had lost touch with several years before. Talk about weird.
The weirdest, though, was before Papa Tiger and I got married, we were visiting his mom 1000 miles from where I lived and 6000 miles from where he lived – and we ran into a guy we both knew separately, who was also visiting that area from 500 miles away. He didn’t know we even knew each other, and neither of us knew that the other of us knew him. Weird and wild indeed.
i ran into a girl who goes to my high school in new york, in venice this past march. that was random.
also, i was in a play last year with this girl dana. in new jersey. and she mentioned offhand that she used to live in astoria, so i asked her randomly if she knew this girl carla i’m friends with, who’s from astoria. apparantly her little brother and carla’s brother were best friends in grammar school. wild.
I used to think the most impressive thing I’d ever experienced is when I was wandering around in a cathedral in England, some gawdawful huge number of miles from my home in Seattle, and I ran into my high school art teacher.
Then this summer happened. I was in Cork, in Ireland, rooming with a guy from Spain. And his dad called up to tell him that also in Cork at the time was a girl he knew from Spain. Sort of. You see, her apartment was across the street from his, so they’d seen each other but never met. And there they were in Ireland at the same time. 'Sokay, I thought, it’s not like Ireland and Spain are that far apart.
And then, another roomie was wandering through London on a weekend holiday and saw someone he’d known in middle school. From Detroit. Hmm, I thought, this seeing people you know while wandering around Europe is getting kind of common, eh?
So a few weeks later, we’re walking around the streets and my Spanish flatmate spots someone he’d know from Spain. From when they were both very young. They’d been best friends, in fact, but had long since lost touch. And now they were both living in Cork. In fact, as it turns out, they were living on the same block.
At this point, I officially gave up. Apparently, every time you go to Europe, you see someone you once knew. It’s a small world indeed.
When I was in high school (in Arizona) I was returning from visiting my dad (in Florida) and ran into a girl I went to school with (in the Atlanta, GA airport) and we actually sat next to each other on the plane back to Tucson.
I was living in Rochester, NY this summer working at a movie theater, and on my first Saturday night working there I ran into three guys I graduated with in my little chickencrap town 4 hours south in PA. Not only did I graduate with them, but the one was my best HS friend’s boyfriend for several years. Apparently they also knew some people in Rochester and were up to celebrate a graduation, not knowing I was there and especially not that I’d be working at that movie theater, as I’d just started three days before. I was very surprised to see them.
The same guys showed up on my last Saturday night working there, again visiting someone they knew, this time seeing Freddy Vs. Jason.
About ten years ago I flew into Dallas, rented a car, and drove up through Oklahoma on my way to a wedding in Oklahoma City. I pulled into a McDonald’s in McAllister, Oklahoma. I needed to use the bathroom, so I didn’t bother with the drive-thru. So I walked in and waited in line, when I heard someone a few people in front of me order. His voice sounded familiar, so I leaned around the people in front of me to get a better look.
It was my Dad.
My Dad, who lived in Florida, and who was helping an old friend drive a moving van from St. Louis to Houston.
He had no reason to believe I wasn’t still in San Francisco, I had no reason to believe he wasn’t still in Florida, and we pulled into the same McDonald’s in noplace, Oklahoma, heading in completely different directions, at the same time. With about ten gajillion fast food places along our respective routes. The friendly folks in line were all enjoying our incredible reunion and got a tremendous kick out of it when we explained all the details.
2,476 miles between San Francisco and Sanibel, and we both walk into the same McDonald’s in Oklahoma at the same time.
I frequently have to call him and have him explain to my disbelieving friends that it really happened.