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Quick backstory. We have a group of friends that all live in the same city in Alabama. One of them, my friend's girlfriend, has moved to Georgia for the summer for a job.

So, my friend tells me this story:
He went to visit her for a few days, and took a day trip to a Florida beach. On their way back to the girlfriend's temporary home in Georgia, they stopped at a random gas station and ate at McDonald's while there. Where they happened upon one of our Alabama-residing friends. The sheer unlikeliness of the situation had him baffled and I was seriously bamboozled too. I love crap like that.

So what horribly unlikely things have happened to you or someone you know?

I'm always randomly meeting people in unexpected places, to the point where it no longer surprises me. Some examples:

1. Once I was meeting my dad for dinner, and was waiting for him outside his office around 6-ish in the evening. A guy walks out of the elevator, I stare at him, he stares at me, our mutual recognition hits at the exact same moment. He was an acquaintance from university, who'd just started working for my dad's department that week. Oh, and his job had absolutely nothing to do with what he studied at university, he basically just took a chance with the job application and got the job. And his boss just happened to be my dad.

2. Back in my undergrad days, a bunch of us decided to go on a three-day trip snorkeling on an island off the coast of Taiwan. My grandparents decided this would be a good time for them to join a tour group and spend a week or so journeying around Taiwan too. At the end of my three-day trip, I was at Taidong Train Station, basically a tiny train station in the middle of nowhere, sitting there waiting for my train, when a tour bus pulls up. The door opens, and my grandparents emerge. Quite coincidentally, their arrival in Taidong coincided with my departure. I ran up to them, greeted them, and almost gave them both heart attacks.

3. Bit of an indirect one here. Once, my then-girlfriend-now-wife and I were browsing a shop in a department store. We split up to browse the stuff that would interest us. I finished my browsing and went looking for my girlfriend, and I accidentally bumped into a very petite young woman, knocking her into a shelf. I helped her up, apologized, and we went our separate ways. I found my girlfriend, and she said, "Hey, I think I saw a girl I knew back in junior high. I haven't seen her in years! Lemme go find her." We find her, and lo and behold, it's the girl I knocked down earlier. It was awkward, "Hey, your boyfriend almost killed me a few minutes ago." Anyway, this gave them the chance to reconnect, and the friend later served as a bridesmaid at our wedding, all because I ran her over in a shop, completely by chance.

4. Personal favorite here. Due to my dad's job, we moved around the world quite a bit, following where ever he was posted to. As a result, not only was it hard for me to make friends (because I'd just have to leave them in a few years and familiarize myself with a new group of people at a new place), it eventually made it hard for me to remember faces, because I'd see so many. In 1997, he received his orders to move from Washington DC to London. Before we moved, we had a farewell barbecue with some friends and coworkers, at which I met a girl who'd moved there only a few days ago. She and I kind of hit it off, but I eventually ruined it by starting a massive water fight, and her Tamgotchi got soaked, ruining it. We moved away a few days later, but I always felt a bit bad about breaking a little girl's electronic pet.

Fast forward fifteen years. I'm now studying English literature at a university in Taiwan. We get a transfer student in our department, and she impresses me with her accurate English pronunciation. I get her MSN address, add her, and we start chatting that evening. She tells me her dad was posted to Washington DC for a few years, which is where she picked up her English. I asked her when she was there, and we calculated that there probably wasn't any overlap, so we probably never met each other while we were there. I asked her if she liked her time in DC, and she said it was really hard to make friends at first, because she didn't know anybody, and she didn't speak the language, and even the Taiwanese youths would pick on her. Why, there was this one asshole at a barbecue, who poured water over her and destroyed her Tamagotchi.

I was all like, "No... freaking... way..."

I'm 5 or so years out of college, and I have to go to southern Ohio (Dayton-ish) for a management training class. On the way back home, I stop at a remote gas station late at night to get gas and directions, and a guy at one of the other pumps suddenly busts out with, "Omigod! Is that you? I can't believe it!" It's one of my cabin-mates from my 2-week Summer camp in Traverse City about 10 years prior. Weird.

--Patick

I don't know if this count, but me and my 2 brothers aren't very close and we are really different. We don't have any sisters now, but my parent's first baby was a girl and died after birth. We all got married with girls without brothers, each with 2 sisters (and a dead brother) and we all had daughters. And for some reason the name of the girls are Daniela, Gabriela (In honor of my sister), Rafaela y Micaela.

No Donatella and Leonarda? Missed a chance there

I have two stories like that.

When I was on my way to Germany, I ran into a military buddy at JFK in New York City. You'd think this was not much of a coincidence considering the military/airport angle, but by that time we'd both been out for several years and he had moved back home to a little town in central Iowa.

A few years ago I was in Chicago on a business trip and ran into my cousin at the airport. Not O'Hare - Midway. We had lunch and then went our separate ways. It was nice but strange.

Bubble181 said:

No Donatella and Leonarda? Missed a chance there

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Maybe next one

I know what terrik looks like from his photos and run into him every time I go to Shanghai, but don't tell him








(jk)

doomdragon6 said:

Quick backstory. We have a group of friends that all live in the same city in Alabama. One of them, my friend's girlfriend, has moved to Georgia for the summer for a job.

So, my friend tells me this story:
He went to visit her for a few days, and took a day trip to a Florida beach. On their way back to the girlfriend's temporary home in Georgia, they stopped at a random gas station and ate at McDonald's while there. Where they happened upon one of our Alabama-residing friends. The sheer unlikeliness of the situation had him baffled and I was seriously bamboozled too. I love crap like that.

So what horribly unlikely things have happened to you or someone you know?

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I have had this exact situation happen a surprising number of times. I have run into students (from Louisiana) in the middle of Texas, a classmate from SC in Manhattan, etc.[DOUBLEPOST=1372774207][/DOUBLEPOST]Several times in my life, I've been introduced to something "classic" that hasn't been mainstream in a long while. Then, suddenly it becomes mainstream. It's probably a collective conscience thing. Example: when I was a kid, my dad insisted we try this thing called a "cherry coke" that he loved when he was a kid. He drove around for hours trying to find a place that made one. We finally found it at a football stadium (we didn't go to the actual game). That same summer, Coke came out with the commercially produced version.

fade said:

...I have run into students (from Louisiana) in the middle of Texas...

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But doesn't every college diploma in Louisiana come with a bus ticket to Houston folded inside?

ElJuski and I ran into a party in Indiana (we both live in Chicago) on a New Years Eve when I was still in High School and he was a Freshman in college, we didn't talk much before this.

He then proceeded to ruin a chance with a girl for the both of us. He then asked me for a ride home. The entire ride he made me listen to Death Cab for Cutie and went on for hours about the album.

Then we were roommates in college!

My gf's family met the assistant of her hometown's doctor in the middle of Yosemite National Park, totally by accident and without any knowledge of travel plans beforehand.

And that's starting from germany on different dates for different trips.

I was living in Saskatoon, and was returning there from my family's cabin in middle-of-nowhere-BC via Valemount (little town on the BC/Alberta border) where we were staying for one night on the way home.
While chilling in the hot tub at the hotel that evening we were joined by a trio of middle-aged middle eastern men, one of whom looked and sounded vaguely familiar. They were brothers on their annual summer roadtrip, and were in town for one night. Through the course of conversation, it turns out he's from Victoria, where I was raised, and ran a pharmacy in town. The same pharmacy that my family had used for 25+ years, and he knew most of us by voice from giving perscriptions over the phone. Turns out, this is a guy that has known me my entire life, and we still recognized each other, depsite not coming across each other for some 6 years, and not being that familiar in the first place, and not seeing each other in our expected locales.
It was odd.

There was a girl I went to school with in 2nd and 3rd grade, after which she moved out of town. The summer before my junior year of high school I ran into her while on vacation out of the country.

So, the most unlikely thing that happened to most of you is about random encounters?

I won 36 straight games of solitare on my phone. To put that in perspective, my win rate is around 72% according to the app (single-card draw solitare). So, do that math, 0.28 to the power of 36 is: 1.2522x10-20. That's the odds of that happening.

I bought a lottery ticket after that streak. Didn't win.

Eriol said:

I won 36 straight games of solitare on my phone. To put that in perspective, my win rate is around 72% according to the app (single-card draw solitare). So, do that math, 0.28 to the power of 36 is: 1.2522x10-20. That's the odds of that happening.

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3. I met a girl from high school working at the same place I was working, 1400km from our home town some 14 years after graduating

2. I met fell in love and married a woman with almost identical names to my family.

1. WindowsME was stable for 18 days on my old pc.

Cog said:

So, the most unlikely thing that happened to most of you is about random encounters?

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Well, that started the thread anyway.

OH! I know one. This is the great tragedy of my life:

While stopping at a Sonic at night in Northport, AL, I found what I thought was nickel. I was like, sweet! Nickel! But upon closer inspection it was a (I want to say 1969, but I'm not sure of the date. It was fairly old, though) Bermuda Five Cents coin.

I was like, "What the HELL??? What the hell is a coin from Bermuda-- a coin from over 40 years ago-- doing in Northport, AL??" Now, you could come up with anything, like a college kid went on vacation in Bermuda, whatever, but still! I love stuff like this. That coin had a STORY. That coin had over 40 years to exist and make transacations in Bermuda, travelling who the hell knows where, and ended up in my hands in Northport, AL.

BUT. There is a but to this story.

I was not the end of its journey.

Since I like coins, history of old items, and chance happenings, I kept the coin and decided it was now one of my prized posessions. I put it in my wallet to make sure I wouldn't lose it before I got home, and even put tape around it so it wouldn't slip out. Alas, the tape would be my undoing. The tape actually gave the coin less friction instead of more bulk like I'd hoped, and it slipped out of my wallet at a Subway in Hope Hull, AL. (I know it had to be there, because I'd showed it to my grandmother just 30 minutes prior, and had meant to put it somewhere safe as soon as I got back.) I actually drove back to the Subway to see if it was there, but of course, it was gone.

That coin had a free spirit, a life of its own. Who was I to end its journey? I was merely the vessel through which it continued its travels. From a Sonic in Northport, AL to a Subway in Hope Hull, AL, and who knows to whence from there!

Godspeed, Bermuda Coin. I should have never tried to contain you for myself. May luck be with your travels!

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Another:
Shit, I forgot this one. Placeholder!

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Another:
I found a 7-Leaf Clover once. I laminated it, but this was years and years ago, so it appears to be about to crumble inside it.
It's a bit hard to see, but you can count all 7 on there.

Cog said:

So, the most unlikely thing that happened to most of you is about random encounters?

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I once encountered a shiny Chansey in the Safari Zone, does that count? Didn't manage to catch it, either.

I was driving through Alabama once on my way home from visiting relatives in Houston and to my sister's house in Opelika. I stopped in a small town south of Montgomery to get some food. I found this weird coin on the ground of a Subway. I thought it was kind of cool, so I put it into my pocket to inspect later. Found out it was a nickel from Bermuda. I thought it was kind of neat, so kept it with me. I lost it before I got home, though. May have dropped it or spent it accidentally somewhere else along the way and no one noticed it.

doomdragon6 said:

I found a 7-Leaf Clover once. I laminated it, but this was years and years ago, so it appears to be about to crumble inside it.

It's a bit hard to see, but you can count all 7 on there.

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You can take solace in the fact that, once you are accidentally frozen for 1000 years, your brother will use this clover to good effect.

evilmike said:

You can take solace in the fact that, once you are accidentally frozen for 1000 years, your brother will use this clover to good effect.

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So his girlfriend's going to wind up with Pauly Shore, is what you're saying?

HCGLNS said:

1. WindowsME was stable for 18 days on my old pc.

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Look, no offense, but we're trying to be serious here. One-upping with fictional tales like that's just not done.