Back when I was renting an entire house by myself, I let a buddy store a substantial amount of his gear in my basement. After about a year, an old friend took one of the rooms.
She went to Emily Carr (an art school) and struck up a friendship with her randomly-assigned “locker buddy.” In passing, she mentioned that she was irritated because her roommate let a friend use most of the basement for storage, said friend was dragging heels about collecting it, she felt powerless because it was the status quo she was coming into, etc. Locker buddy recognized the names of the actors (Larry and Joe) and overall situation and said, “Well, as it turns out, Joe’s my boyfriend and I think most of that stuff is actually mine. I’ll get it out of there right away.” (This is in a school of ~7,000 and city of two million.)
I guess that’s kind of indirect. Here: One day, back in the nineties, I was riding the bus home from work and reading a book on the history of Hermeticism. A footnote about Plato piqued my interest and I made a note in my notebook: “Get a copy of Symposium!”. When I arrived home a girl that I had just started seeing was waiting for me on my steps, unexpectedly. She said, “I stopped in a used book store and found something for you.” Yes, an old, yellowed copy of Plato’s Symposium. Completely randomly. (She said she inferred I might like it because of what she’d seen on my bookshelves - which contained exactly *no *classical philosophy.)
At the time, I was sure that meant we were fated to be together.
This in hindsight isn’t much of a coincidence, but to my eleven year old mind it was huge.
It was Thursday, and the day before my sister’s thirteenth birthday. I notice she was turning thirteen on a Friday, and made a bid deal about how she was doomed to have bad luck. You know, because thirteenth birthday on a Friday, is sort of like “Friday the Thirteenth”. Anyway, the next day our house burned down.
Back in college, getting a ride home with a friend for Fall Break, travelling from Dallas to St. Louis. We stopped off at some random McDonald’s somewhere in Oklahoma. I’m standing in line, looking around…the guy in front of me orders and I pause when I hear the voice and look at him…it’s my Dad.
Dad was heading to from KC to Houston with a colleague for business. Neither of us had any awareness of the others’ travel plans.
To meet in the same line like that…leaving from different departure cities…leaving at different departure times…travelling in exact opposite directions…plus the huge number of places to stop for food…I mean, the odds are incalculable.
Years ago when I worked in Boston, my boss hired a new manager for one of our other departments. He and I got to hanging out at lunch, and one day we started asking about each other’s families.
Interestingly, it turned out both our wives were Army brats. It also turned out they’d been ‘stationed’ in Germany at the same time. In Heidelberg. Living at Patrick Henry Village. Going to school together. On the cheerleading squad.
Morbo, you know it’s a pretty big coincidence I am here to tell pretty much the same story. Your story wasn’t even on there when I decided to post. I decided I should refresh before posting.
So last summer we were on our way home to North Carolina from a vacation in upstate New York. We pull off I-81 at a random exit in Pennsylvania so I can use the bathroom in the McDonalds.
When I came out of the McDonalds a car was parked next to ours and my husband was standing chatting with someone.
It was a guy we lived next door to 15 years ago in Virginia. He was heading home from a vacation.
What were the odds we would randomly end up at the same McDonalds?
(I feel now that they were slightly higher than I had previously estimated :))
love all these stories! There’s some weirdness at work.
In 2001, Feb. 28th I was at work. I was very anxious for some reason. I kept thinking someone was in trouble. “P needs help.” kept running through my mind. I called my son’s widow, whose name began with P. She was fine, so I called my husband, also a P. He said "Everything is… what the hell!I heard a crash in the background, then I felt the building begin to shake. We were having a very powerful earthquake. We stayed on the phone until it was over. Because he is a firefighter, he was mandated to return to work immediately. I didn’t see him for two more days. After our call the phones were dead. Because I felt there was something wrong, I, at least, knew he was ok.
My high school boyfriend dumped me (pretty callously) when I was 18. I was pretty distraught about the breakup, even several months after the event. One night, I dreamed that K. had been in an accident and wrecked his car. It was a memorable (and realistic) enough dream that I mentioned it to my mother that morning at breakfast.
Not more than an hour later, my best friend (who lived on the same street as K.) called me to mention that she’d just driven by K.'s house on her way to work, and his car, parked by the curb, had obviously been in a wreck. Apparently he’d fallen asleep at the wheel the night before and there had been a nasty wreck - he wound up in the hospital.
I should have listened to my mother, she told me to run when I explained the coincidences. My now ex-husband’s name and her husband’s name are Ray, his best friend and my older brother’s names are Doug, both our sisters’ names are Susan, and we both had brothers names Kirk. It was cool at the time, but kind of freaky.
I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this here before. Around 1992, my sister was over visiting one winter night. My roommate Renaldi came home from skiing and told us about how, driving back over the mountain pass in a surprise snowstorm with chaotic driving conditions, some asshole driver was going too fast and somehow had caused Renaldi’s Jetta to spin out to the shoulder, as he had no chains for his tires. He remarked how he’d love to get his hands on that driver. My sister soon went home, and later that night her roommate came in and told her how he felt really bad because he had been driving back over the pass after skiing, was trying to beat the storm, was going too fast, and caused a Jetta to spin around off to the shoulder. To this day, I still like to bug him about it.
About a year after I moved to Israel from US, a US friend of mine was visiting Israel. He thought of me but didn’t have any idea where I was. He stopped a random person on the street in Tel Aviv, just as a joke, and asked him if he knew insert my name. The guy said yes, and gave him my phone number.
He called me that day and told me how he found me. I was very surprised to hear from him.
In 2000, my dad and I went to Orlando FL for vacation. We were at Sea World, standing in line for one of the rides and I hear a woman yell, “ANNA!”
I thought nah… I don’t knwo anyone in Orlando.
“ANNA! Anna (last name)!”
I turned around to see one of the gals I worked with… she had at one time been in my department, we had been friends, she went to a different department and we hadn’t really talked in months. Neither had any idea we were going to be in Orlando…much less Sea World… at the same time!
Just had a much smaller one the other night at work. I work at an in-bound call center and started the call in my usual manner: Hi, thank you for calling XXXXX, my name is Anna, how may I help you this afternoon?"
A very sweet southern gentleman’s voice said, “My mother’s name was Anna.”
I looke at his name… Jerry… which was my father’s name!
I grew up in a very isolated community and, at the time, people just didn’t move to, or away from the place. My high school only offered Spanish and I was already fluent. I took two years of French out at the local JC instead.
A couple or three years later I was at UCal. Riverside, a third of the state away, and signed up for French classes to freshen up my skills. The instructor listed was just something like “staff.”
Imagine my surprise when I walked in the first day to find my former French teacher was once again my current French teacher! Mrs. P kept a brave look on her face, but I know she must have been thinking she’d finally gotten away from my execrable French accent, even if it’d meant moving hundreds of miles.
Sorry Mrs. P; you’re an excellent teacher and it’s not your fault I speak every foreign language with a Spanish accent.
Arrgh! I almost forgot the best one. My first boss was Bette Davis. Not the Bette Davis, but still. My second boss was Helen Hayes, once again, not the famous Helen Hayes.
Then came a few years where I taught and didn’t really have a boss. So the next time I had a boss again, who else but not-the-real Marlo Thomas was in charge?
I can hardly wait to see who’ll be my next boss-- Julia Roberts?
Here’s a weird one-I started seeing a guy from my neighborhood. It was ok, not too serious. I had a doctor’s appointment one afternoon. He mentions that his mom works at that hospital. Its a really big hospital. Well, as it turns out, his mom is the nurse in my gyne office. Yuck. He was a nice guy, but really, as soon as I knew that it was over.
This might not be my biggest coincidence, but the SSN story in the OP reminded me of it. I don’t remember how we got to talking about it, but a few years back I found out that my social security number and my aunt’s are sequential.
Also, now that I think about it, here’s another one. A girl I was dating about 12 years ago: Both of our initials were JEP, both of our mom’s initials were AJP, both of us had brothers named Nick that were dating girls named Sarah. I don’t remember off the top of my head, but I think there were a few other things in there as well. Family members with the same birthdays or something along that line. We ended up married and gave our daughter the initials JEP as well…then we got divorced so it didn’t really matter anyways.
Oh, wait, thought of one more. I run a small little mom and pop store. Some of our really good customers have shirts/sweatshirts/hats/etc with our logos on them. One of my customers mentioned a few months ago that we was on vacation in either California or Florida (we’re in Wisconsin) and happened to have on one of our shirts when someone stopped him and mentioned that he shops at that store…though I suppose that was a bigger coincidence for him then me. But it was still nice to know he was wearing my logo’d shirt on vacation.
My friend Jen, who is bi, was chatted up on a dating site by a girl named Tami (who is a lesbian) who was looking for friends in Cleveland when she moved here from out of town. Tami and Jen didn’t date but they became good friends and the 3 of us hung out a lot.
For some reason or another, one time last year the subject of my friend Brenda came up. Brenda is a girl I know who is MTF transgendered, and we grew up together when she was Brad. I was asking Jen and Tami’s thoughts on some transgendered issues.
Brenda and Tami are the only two lesbians I know IRL.
Fast forward about 6 months and Facebook tells me that Tami and Brenda are now friends. I ask Tami what’s up and she says she was surprised to see we were mutual friends with Brenda. The two met on OK Cupid and they went on a few dates. They didn’t stay together (Brenda was on the rebound) but are still friends.
I think it’s hilarious that if I would have tried to hook them up just based on the fact that they are the only two lesbians I know, it would have been stupid and awkward and rude of me. But as it turned out they had some things in common and found each other any way
My wife and I graduated from high schools in different states. Both schools have the same mascot (Bulldogs) which isn’t so odd, but we also had the same school colors (purple and white.) Not sure what the likelihood of that happening is, but it’s a neat coincidence.
A few years ago, the Atlanta Braves were in the playoffs with the San Francisco Giants. I went to work but mentioned to my boss that I’d rather be on my way to Atlanta to see the game; much to my surprise he said, “if you can still get tickets, go.”
Long story short, an hour later my then-wife and I are on the road for the 5-hour trip to Atlanta. We get there, get to our seats and get ready to enjoy the game. Sometime early in the game, a guy takes his seat next to us. Over the next few innings, we chat. He’s a Giants fan who lives in San Francisco but was in Atlanta for the same reason most people are in Atlanta (connecting flight) when this game was forced the night before and decided to postpone his outgoing flight so he could come to the game. So we’re both there as the result of last-minute decisions.
He asks if we’re from Atlanta, and I explain that we live in Charlotte but that I’m originally from Columbia, SC. He says he had spent some time in Columbia, so I assume what I always assume when someone says that, that he did basic training at Ft. Jackson, but he says no, he just worked there for a while. Then he mentions the University (he may have worked there, I forget now) and then he starts talking about the biggest USC football fan he ever met, and even before he says his name, I know who he’s talking about.
I say the name, and he says, “That’s the guy! I guess he’s kind of famous around town, huh?”
And I say, “Not especially. But he’s a friend of the family and I used to work for him.”
A small one but it happened last night. I got invited to dinner with my boyfriend, his mother and her boyfriend. There was a certain restaurant they wanted to go to that has good clam chowder on Fridays. I met them there and on the way I was trying to decide if I was all that hungry and thought maybe I’d just get clam chowder and onion rings. Now I like onion rings but I don’t have them a lot so I have no idea why they popped in my head. After I got there and started looking at the menu I knew I was hungrier than I thought so opted for the soup and salad. My boyfriend’s mother and her friend ordered the clam chowder and onion rings. I had not told them I was considering ordering that so they came up with it on their own.
