What is the most improbable thing that ever happened to you?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In [url =http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=190612]this thread, I’ve brought up a question about how to calculate the probability of a rather striking event that happened to me while working at Ticketmaster a few years back.

This would a customer calling from a very familiar address. Reason why it seemed familiar, it dawned on me, was that I’d lived in that house until 1977.

Crunching the numbers most of the way, I find that this is not quite so improbable as I’d thought (millions of times as probable as winning the lottery, for example), but still a really long shot.

So… what are your really long shots?

2

Ack. Must preview.

3

A very recent thread you may be interested in.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=188419

4

My conception.

It was Immaculate, too. ;j

5

I have two strange stories of lost objects.

I was canoeing with some friends once and one of them lost a hat. A couple miles downstream, I glanced into the river and saw it floating down.

When I was in college, I used to wear a charm on a chain. A few months before graduating, I lost it. After moving home, one day I glanced on my floor and there it was. I had lost it a couple hundred miles away from where I found it.

6

My phone called an old college chum one time. My phone rang and I picked it up and said, “Hello?”

The masculine voice on the other end said, “Hello?”

So I said, “Hello?” again.

He said, “Hello? Who is this?”

At this, I recognized his voice and I asked if it were N. and he affirmed it.

He claimed that his phone rang and he had just answered it. At any rate, we renewed our friendship and spent some happy times together after that.

Another time my phone rang and the receiver jumped off of the receiver. Beats me…

7

Also, I was kidnapped by a Viking and taken to an island and a house that overlooked the sea. There I was fed frickerdeller, turnips, soft boiled eggs, harvarti, schnapps and fried eel.

8

I got pregnant three times in two years. I was using, in this order, the Pill, foam and condom TOGETHER, and an IUD. After all this, I used abstinence until I could get my tubes tied.

9

Some of my dreams became true. In other words, I dreamt of the future, sometimes.

10

Three near death experiences. Not quite what is usually meant by the term, however.

Age 18. Pull out of Middle School parking lot after voting. It’s dark, overcast and windy. Get on main road. Don’t see stop sign at railroad crossing until I’m literally next to it. I slam on the brakes and my car goes from 30 to 0 in about 6 feet (I still don’t understand how that happened). At that moment, the train roars by, quite literally within one foot of my car.

About four months later. Feeding the horses. I walk over and bend down to go between the barbed wire to the hay mound. One of the horses runs over, spins around and kicks at my head. One hoof scraped the crown of my forehead, leaving a mark. The other tuffed the hair on the back of my neck. A very subtle movement in either direction and my head would have been taken off.

The third one, I won’t go into here.

But then, I used to say that the show “Strange Luck” was about me, as everything strange and unusual would happen to me. Acquaintences would scoff, but friends would verify - they’d seen those things happen!

11

Like Chimera I’ve cheated death several times (at least five times) which I discussed in another thread on that subject.

Two years ago, I sold my company and got close to the asking price under very unlikely circumstances, but that is too long to tell.
So, I’ll tell one that is long but hopefully not too long.

In college (Auburn), my wife had a boyfriend from Meridan, MS. He was very macho, always messing with snakes and other animals. He had a friend named Roy that was equally strange that way. When we were in Cincinnati we saw Roy on one of those wildlife TV programs. We moved to MS 28 years ago and whenever we traveled near Meridian I heard about Stuart and Roy. We made some attempts at contacting both, but no luck.

Around 10 years ago, our twins were on the swimming team and many meets were held in Meridian. On the second or third over-night visit there my wife got in touch with Roy. He told us he was the largest emu farmer in MS. and that Stuart had devorced and married a younger woman. Stuart lived in Montgomery, AL. On the next trip, when we called, Roy said he lived near where we were and would meet us in the lobby in 15 minutes.

He showed up with some scrapbooks of his adventures. He talked about Stuart, but hadn’t seen him lately. Roy was friends with the ex and didn’t approve of the divorce.

Roy and my wife were sitting with their backs to the check in desk and elevators. A couple came in and signed in. I noticed he was older than she was, but made no connection. They went to the elevator and got on. Right then, Roy said something about “crocodiles”. With that the man in the elevator turned around and kept the door from closing.
He looked at us and called out “Roy, is that you?”

Well of course it was Stuart. They were in Meridian, so that he could renew his pilot’s license (he had been a crop duster, liquor store owner and taught at a junior college in Scooba, MS). He said that when he heard the word “crocodile” he wanted to see who it was that considered himself an expert on the subject. Of course, he accepted Roy’s expertise.

We still keep in touch with Roy (who has sold his emus). Stuart now lives in Baton Rouge.

12

I was asked out on a date by a stranger while on a jet sky way out in ocean.

I didn’t know the guy. I was there with my boyfriend and we tried to ride on the jet ski together, but it wasn’t working out, so we agreed to split the use. I was having the time of my life and I stopped to take a breather and survey the area, amazed all at once by the beauty and an underlying fear of disaster, and up comes this middle aged dude on another jet ski. He strikes up a conversation, “Hey, how are you, my name is Doe I’m from State, I’m here on vacation, what about you? What hotel are you staying at?”

“Uh, I’m not staying at a hotel, I live here.” <Annoyed glance>

“Ah, a local. Well, would you like to have dinner, maybe show me around?”

“You know, I think my boyfriend over there might have a problem with that. I guess I do too. See ya.” <rolling eyes, speeds off>

It was kinda funny, in hindsight.

13

Funny, but not very improbable. :slight_smile:

14

I once ran into the same person twice in two weeks – first in Hong Kong, then on a train in Boston. At the time I lived in DC and he lived in Portland.

15

Not so much me, but my father. Every year since I was born, and even many before that, my family took a vacation in Maine. Every year he would see someone there who he did not know was going to be there. It gets better, as when I was five-ish. my parents and some aunt and uncles went to Germany…yup, they ran into people they knew. Twive my family has gone to Florida, both times, meeting people we knew. My dad goes on a couple business trips a year, at least one a year he sees someone he knows, mind you, these are in places like Texas, Canada, Arizona, etc… The pinaccle is my parents 25th anniversary. They take a cruise in the Virgin Islands with four other friends. While walking along a street in St Thomas, they see someone from our hometown, on a different cruise. It’s a curse, really, and has started to affect both my sister and myself.

16

How about a couple of natural gas explosions…

One fine day back in 1989, the New Jersey town where we lived was rocked by an explosion, and I mean rocked. It was about 6:30 in the morning, and folks felt the ground move for a dozen miles around. It turns out that it was a massive gas explosion in some anonymous apartment complex several miles away: nobody was hurt, so it promptly faded in my memory. Six months later, we were apartment hunting, and after several missteps, we found the place that seemed most likely. They showed us the unit that was available and kept telling us how everything was brand-new… It was all new because this was the building that had blown up several months before.

We moved in and enjoyed a few years there – after all, it was pre-exploded, so we didn’t have to worry about that.

In 1978, my family went on a road trip to California, and we stopped in Albuquerque, NM on our way out and again on our way back. Kids have a way of remembering details nobody else cares about (especially since every event is a significant part of their brief kid lives), so I recalled in great detail the motel we stayed at: the Trade Winds motel. Twenty years pass by. One day I’m looking at the paper during a coffee break at work and I see a small item in the corner: A natural gas explosion ripped through the Trade Winds motel in Albuquerque, NJ. Improbable that a building might have an explosion in twenty years? Maybe not. But it’s odd that that’s the only building I know in that town and I can remember it clearly as it was in '78.

17

Not me, but two of my schoolfriends. Friend A went to call Friend B. Friend A picked up the phone to dial, but before he dialled he heard instead Friend B say “hello?” He’d picked up the phone as the line connected, but just before it rang, thus saving him making the call.

18

The jet-ski story reminds me of this…

My wife and I standing on the balcony looking down at the harbour enjoying the ambience, when this annoying jet-ski appears, streaking back and forth making an awful raquet.

After several minutes of this my wife makes a hand like a gun, points it at the ski and goes bang. Instantly, the driver of the jet-ski falls off and the jet-ski keeps going.

We pissed ourselves laughing.

19

Ay, beat me to it! It’s been happening a lot recently, though, perhaps once every six months. So I guess it would be a probable thing then. :wink:

20

Not that improbable, but really funny.

When my brother and I were kids we were stuck someplace staring at a Coke machine. (DMV with mom or something.) It was about a thousand degrees and staring at the machine just made us SOOOO thirsty. Finally, my brother stomps over to it and slaps one of the buttons and whrrrrrrrr-clunk a can of soda came out. We stared for a second, then started slapping all the buttons trying to get more, lol. That was so weird and random, and unexpectedly delightful.

I’ve also dreamt about things that came true. The one that sticks out in my mind is I once had a dream I was in an unfamiliar class and a teacher I didn’t recognise was writing a long, complicated formula on the blackboard. Several years later I was in a Physics class and as the teacher began to write something out, I realised I knew how he was going to finish it because it was in my dream. That sorta gave me the willies.