Weird coincidences. Have we ever done this?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Mine are like Maserschmidt’s.

Years ago my brother, his wife and son experienced a vehicle break-down heading home from Montana and were stranded by the side of the road in the Middle of Nowhere, Washington State. At that time, they did not have AAA coverage or know anyone who lived nearby who could come and help. This was in a time before common cell phone ownership.

They were pondering what to do when a kind passerby and his wife stopped and asked if he could help. My brother gratefully accepted the offer. He, his wife and son all piled into the good Samaritan’s car.

They passed the time chit chatting as you do while they drove toward Seattle. The fellow mentioned that his mother lived in Tiny Village, California. My brother, surprised, said, “My sister lives in Tiny Village, California. I wonder if they know each other?”

The fellow responded, “My mother works as a clerk of the court in Cow County, California.”

My brother said, “My sister works as a clerk of the court in Cow County, California! What a crazy coincidence!”

The fellow said, “I know, right? My mother works in the juvenile court.”

You guessed it. I was the other clerk who worked in the juvenile court in that county at that time. I was a newb and they always started newbs off in juvenile court. We were the only two.

Another time during roughly the same period, I became online pals with a woman who lived in Australia. After we had gotten to know each other, I invited her to come visit if she ever found herself in California and I would be happy to play tour guide. She said she would enjoy that and mentioned she had an aunt who lived in California, asked me where I lived. I shared the name of my backwater little California village of 12,000 people. Came a long pause. Yes, her aunt lived there, too. And we knew each other a little. Crazy!

22

I had jury duty. I went into court for the question/answer portion. They called my name and I sat in a chair below the bench and the Judge and answered the questions. The judge asked me to stand up and he looked funny at me and asked me who I was before I married. I told him, he asked me if I had Sister and I told him yes. Where did she go to college, I answered. He explained that he dated her in college, they had a nasty break-up because she caught him and her dorm-room mate in a compromising state. He then married the room mate. I knew the whole story of course, except his name. I was excused of jury duty. Boy, I was glad of that.

23

About a year and a half ago my wife and I were in a foreign country for my niece’s wedding (we stayed about a week). This was a major city of close to a million people. In the taxi on the way back to the airport we were at a red light and looked out the window to see my brother, niece and her new husband waiting at that very corner to cross the light. They didn’t live anywhere near that part of the city.

A couple of weeks ago I was with my kids at a Mets game, and Yoanis Cespedes came to bat. We were in the left field bleachers, a few rows back, and I told my kids “see, he’s a righty, he’s going to hit a home run right to us”. Sure enough, a couple of pitches later he hit a home run about 15 feet to our right. (We appear in the highlight film of that shot.)

24

I once solved a Wheel-of-Fortune puzzle before any letters were turned. The puzzle consisted of four four-letter words (16 letters in all) and the clue was “place”.

Think about it before reading further.

Could it be “East Bear Rock, Iowa”? How about “West High Hill, Ohio”?

I instantly knew the answer because I happened to be reading a trivia book while watching the show. About fifteen minutes prior, the trivia question was to name the only state capital that consisted of three four-letter words. It was easy enough to supply the fourth word.

25

I think I may have told this story here before. Back in college (Univ. of Kansas) my roommate and I drove to the New York City area for Spring Break. I dropped him off to stay with a friend in Stamford CT, then I drove out to Long Island to spend the week with some friends who were going to grad school in Stony Brook.

There was one day that we had taken the train into NYC and spent the day sightseeing. We were heading back to Penn Station to catch the train back to Stony Brook, and were waiting at a light to cross the street in the middle of Times Square. My friend Deb elbowed me and pointed to a guy standing on the opposite corner, saying “Look at that hick! He looks like he just blew in from Kansas!” That hick was my roommate.

26

Well um…first off, I just read this thread and switched to Facebook.

In FB, I was watching a brief video of a camel, sound off.

My two year-old, across the room quietly eating Cheerios and looking at pictures, suddenly says “Camel. A camel!”

27

To answer the OP’s question, yes, we’ve done this before, many times. But I dig them, so dial me in.

So, one day I’m watching The Simpsons and notice Harry Shearer as the voice of Ned Flanders. No big deal. I know the name, can’t quite picture the face. Some time later, I see a picture of Harry Shearer online. Ohhh yeah, that’s the dude from the Male Synchronized Swimming skit on SNL.

The next day I’m walking to the Farmer’s Market in Santa Monica and, making his way right toward me: Harry Shearer.

I say: “Hey Ned Flanders!”

He says, “Diddly-doo. How do you do?” in the perfect Ned voice.

Had a similar moment with Linda Cardellini, star of the greatest show of all time, Freaks and Geeks.

28

I have a personalized license plate that reads LIKE WHO (as in the rock band).

One day there was an SUV parked next to me with a plate that read LED ZEPP.

29

Years ago I flew into Columbus, Ohio (from San Diego) for a job interview. I did a potty stop at the airport and there stood at the mirror a co-worker from San Diego. She had flown in for a family funeral.

That was a surreal moment.

30

Last week I came out of a restaurant, went to get into my SUV and it wouldn’t unlock. After some “WTF?!” I walked around to see if I could open the passenger door . . . and noticed that the red car parked next to me was the same car I bought last month, a 2004 red BMW that is a bit scarce. Cool, nice to see another one out in the wild!

Then I realized that it WAS my red car. I had forgotten what I was driving that day and someone with a doppelganger SUV had parked next to me.

31

My very first geography lesson in my first week of secondary school was on interpreting maps. We were all handed out a photocopy of a maybe 2.5 mile square from an OS map of a random rural area two counties over, almost 100 miles South of the school, and told to work out distances between various map features.

The map was of the area I was born in, and the house I’d lived in until I was 8 was marked on it.

32

Back when Heroes was on the air, my wife and I were sitting at a pizza joint and she correctly predicted that I was thinking about who else Hayden Panettiere looked like. I swear I had not said this to anyone or looked for it online, and she said she just guessed it.

She’s either a lying bitch or a mind reader. That’s way too random and too much of a coincidence. I think she’s a lying bitch who would like me to think she’s a mind reader though.

33

ex-wife?

34

Nah, I’m just being facetious.

35

Years ago (probably 2006, I’d imagine) I was idly looking at a library book I’d just borrowed, while I waited for the programme I wanted to watch to come on the TV. I don’t remember what the book was, but before the first chapter was a quote — one I’d never come across before:
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist (1891).

That was as far as I got before my show started, which happened to be Criminal Minds; to be specific, Season 2, Episode 4 “Psychodrama”, which began:
Hotchner: “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” Oscar Wilde.

36

Continuing the book thing:

I was driving to the local library to return a book while listening to my favorite sports talk radio show. John Ireland, one of the hosts, said his two must-read books are:

  1. When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead, by producer Jerry Weintraub;
  2. I don’t remember the other one.

You can guess what book I was returning, only I hadn’t read it, despite having renewed it twice (very common for me). So I went home and read it. Good book!

Another time:
While waiting for my son to pick out a book at Barnes & Noble, I got sucked into a book called The Reluctant Psychic. I resisted buying it. A week later, same drill, but I can’t find the darn book. I finally think to myself, Fine, if I find the book, I’ll buy it. Natch, the moment I complete the sentence in my head, it shows up right in front of me. So I bought it.

Another good book! I will let you know when I produce it into a movie. :wink:

37

My wife and I were walking through a park and we saw a single playing card face down on the grass in front of us. I said “Queen of Spades” and flipped it over with my foot. Sure enough, that was it. I’ve never displayed any ESP ability otherwise, so I assume it was just a coincidental, lucky guess.

One night not too long before Christmas, I was sitting on the couch playing a few songs on my guitar. It was late and I was the only one in the house awake. There were a few toys my wife had bought for her nieces that she hadn’t gotten around to wrapping yet- one, set at the other end of the couch from me, was a talking “Barney” doll, that purple dinosaur from the kids’ tv show. It was in its box, but the front was open so you could push a button or squeeze its hand or something to hear it talk. I was in between songs taking a break on the guitar when the talking Barney doll said, in that goofy Barney voice, “play another song”. I mean, it might have been set on some demo mode to say things randomly, but it hadn’t said anything else, so to say that specific thing at that time was damn creepy.

38

I have a USB thumb drive in my car loaded up with about 1,400 songs. One day, driving home for lunch with the radio set to random shuffle, the first song that played was Led Zeppelin’s “Hats Off To (Roy) Harper”, followed by Pink Floyd’s “Have A Cigar”. Pink Floyd fans will understand why I thought that was an odd coincidence.

39

My wife and I live near San Diego but right now we are in Eugene, OR where we’ve just bought a house. We’ve been staying in room #409 of a DT Eugene hotel.

Because our bank has no representation in Oregon and we do not use checks, I had to fly down to San Francisco to get a large cashier’s check. (There might have been an easier and cheaper way to do that, but we were under a time constraint. Part of this was due to its being a weekend which meant I couldn’t ask any local bank if it could coordinate the transaction for me. Based on past experience, they probably wouldn’t have helped me.)

So I spent Sunday night in a SoMa hotel, where my room number turned out to be…

wait for it…

I’m sure you see this coming…

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

40

I’m at the bus stop Friday, headphones on and listening to Abba’s “Does Your Mother Know”, and as I’m swaying and tapping to the music I notice a gothgirl with earbuds moving to the same beat. She grins as she sees this old fart tapping along, but her eye go wide as I start mouthing along with “Well I can dance with you honey, if you think it’s funny…” and she follows with “…Does your mother know that you’re out”. I grin, she gets on her bus and leaves, and that’s it.