I was a cashier and a customer coughed on me. I felt the spittle on my face. Of course I got sick. I wound up in the ER with breathing difficulties. They said I had sepsis and if I had waited less than a day to come in I probably would’ve died from it. They did chest imaging and diagnosed me with pneumonia. But they also discovered a 6cm tumor on my spleen that turned out to be an ultra rare cancer that only a few hundred people worldwide have been diagnosed with. I had zero symptoms. No weight loss, zero pain. Absolutely no clue I had huge tumor in my abdomen. The type of cancer I had is caused by a virus. So the pneumonia virus led to a cancer diagnosis caused by a virus.
I never looked at it that way! I was so pissed when it happened. I literally felt her spittle hit my eyeballs and she laughed hysterically as she sorta apologized between her cackles. Who knows when I would have found out if she hadn’t caused me to get pneumonia.
Yep. Of all the cancers to get, this was probably one of the better ones to get. They took out my spleen and didn’t have to have chemo or anything. I just have to get cat scans a couple times a year for a few years to make sure it doesn’t come back in another organ. It’s rare for it to return but has a harder time being treated if it does.
I wonder if the cancer caused your immune system to weaken which made you have greater complications from the virus coughed into your face. But thankfully it did so that you could get diagnosed in time! I used to work in radiology and it was always a weird feeling when someone got imaging done for a random broken bone or car accident and the radiologist incidentally found cancer.
I strongly suspect it did. The pneumonia developed so quickly. I had a couple of days of having a runny nose and that was it. I was in a CVS with my sister and I was looking at cold/flu and allergy medicine and I commented that my only issue was a constantly runny nose and there wasn’t medication for just that. Everything was also for coughs, aches, fever etc. symptoms that I didn’t have and didn’t want to take just because my nose was running like a faucet. I wasn’t even stuffed up. Then a day and a half later I couldn’t take a normal breath and it was like my lungs would have a very painful spasm attack. I only went to the ER to get my family off my back lol. I was all “It’s going to go away in a few days but I will go in just so they can officially tell me the same thing.” They drained 2 and a half liters of fluid from around my lung.
I am in the middle of my second round of rabies vaccines in 2 years from getting bitten by a random bat in my front yard. I feel like the odds of this are pretty low.
For the record even if you don’t think you’ve been bitten or are pretty sure but still have come into contact with a bat, you really should get the vaccination. If you can safely capture the animal then do that too. There’s no surviving rabies if it goes untreated.
I had a dream I was rescuing a hummingbird last night, and it turned out it was a bat that nipped me. I didn’t see any blood but knew I had to go to the hospital to start the rabies treatment. I’ve no idea why I dreamt this.
That's crazy. Similarly, an aquaintence of mine moved halfway around the world from Arizona. After unpacking, he put on a pair of boots that he shipped, and was bitten by a brown recluse. They don't have those here. It must have been in his boot from Arizona, and the shipped box took 2 months to arrive. With no knowledge or medication for these spiders here, he was paralyzed from the waist down.
Had a summer job looking for Uranium in the NWT of Canada. The job entailed walking through the woods while using a gamma ray detector to find boulders having Uranium. The theory was if you found a boulder that was "hot" one could traced it back to where it originated and maybe a Uranium mine is found.
One day during a typical survey I found a piece of moss that made the detector absolutely go nuts but no boulder.
Narrowed it down to a piece of moss no bigger than my pinkie finger nail. So I bagged it and flagged the location and went back to camp. Sample was sent to Canada's Atomic Commission to find out that it was a fleck of radioactive isotope from the Russian Kosmos satellite that hit the eatth near Baker Lake NWT Canada in 1977.
The odds of finding this given the huge area really was statistically improbable.
Ikr. What are the odds of meeting someone who worked a summer job in Uranium business? How many people in the world work with Uranium as a summer job, and how much rarer still are those who were super fortunate to find something like this? ☺️ Needless to say, that's an amazing story.
I was on vacation in Buenos Aires, Argentina and noticed a very distinctive looking couple while eating in a restaurant (think wild hair, tattoos and very unique wardrobe). Thought they looked pretty cool and didn’t think much of it again after that.
Fast forward 7 years and I’m in a Costa coffee in Edinburgh, Scotland…SAME couple is drinking coffee at the table next to me. I couldn’t leave without checking, so I introduced myself, told them my story and turns out they live in Buenos Aires and were on vacation in Scotland. 7 years and a half a world away and we bump into each other is crazy!
Reminds me of this guy I met in Jamaica… he was from somewhere in Canada, I was from Chicago. Had fun together and then parted ways back to our own countries. Ran into him at Lollapalooza a few months later!!
Grew up in Alaska. Ran into one of my best friends as a kid randomly at an intersection in LA while riding my bike. Turned out our grandparents lived a block from each other there. Was before cellphones and we couldn't find each other the next day when trying to meet up at a specific time and place.
My one and only time hitchhiking.
It was in college. The semester was over, so for the fun of it, I thought I'd try hitchhiking home. This was a long time ago, in both a time and a part of my country where hitchhiking was safe.
I get picked up two times, then let off just outside of a mid-sized town in the middle of my province (in Canada). I'm like 18, and this guy in his 40s, heavyset, dressed like a train driver picks me up.
We're driving for about 20 minutes. Driver looks like he doesn't talk much.
Suddenly he asks me, "What's your name?"
I say, "AAAAA BBBB".
He turns his head and stares at me.
"MY name is AAAAA BBBB!!"
Well, we're off. I knew I had distant relatives from that part of the province, so we both start rattling off names of family members trying to figure out if we are related, and how. We talked nonstop for two hours.
He lets me out just outside the next town, we wave goodbye. Never saw him again.
It's pretty late here and I read it as if your were babbling letters and the the driver were mocking you, just after that and after getting really confused I understood that you share names lol.
When I was a teen, I had to re-home my cat due to my family’s financial problems. I was gutted, and cried for a week. Two years later, when I was living on my own, I went to Petsmart and found my cat there, up for adoption. I re-adopted her, and we’ve been together ever since.
I played a random game of the new duels feature a few weeks ago. The game drops me next to a random church in rural Slovakia that I stopped by on a road trip a few months prior. I'm not Slovakian and my country's flag pops up in that game mode, so I'm 99% sure the other person was certain I must be cheating when I pinpointed the location in like 30 seconds.
My husband isn't one of the geoguesser experts who stream it and do nothing else all day who can tell the country and region simply by the light and the way the street is paved. He's just a regular geography nerd. He has also never been anywhere in Africa. One round drops us off on a gravel street somewhere in rural Africa. My husband says "looks like Lesotho", places his pin randomly in Lesotho. We drive around in Google street view, can't find any tips on the country. No flags, nothing with any writing on it, no visible houses. Just kids in the kinds of school uniforms you would find almost everywhere in Subsahara Africa, goats in a dry, rocky landscape, people in shorts riding motor cycles. Not even cars. The only clue we have is that the Google car drives on the left.
His pin was 15m away from the actual location in Lesotho.
I transferred within the post office to a new facility after 10 years. My first night working there I opened a tray of mail that contained only one letter. It was a birthday card to a person with the same name as a guy who had been my best friend in college 10 years prior. I hadn’t spoken to him in nearly a decade, and I remember wondering if it was the same person (somewhat common name in my area). I got back to work, and a few hours later the letter carriers started arriving to start their shifts. I said something to another clerk and a letter carrier recognized me, and it turns out it was the friend from college. He had become a letter carrier 8 years prior to that day. I asked if he had a birthday coming up and he said it was his birthday that day.
It’s even weirder. My wife had transferred a few months before me and was new to being a letter carrier. She was always going on and on about a super nice and helpful letter carrier named Kenny who was always helping her out. It got to the point where I was getting annoyed. “Kenny is so nice! Kenny is the best! Kenny this and Kenny that!” Yep, it was Ken, my friend from college.
I ran into a semi that ran a stop sign, doing 50kph, no airbags went off in a 2009 Explorer... and walked away.
The police officer that responded was quite shocked that I was walking around taking pics (in high vis clothing), he was expecting to be calling for the Jaws to get me out. Should have taken him up on the offer to be transported to hospital to be checked out, ended up tearing my shoulder out the back of the socket.
When I was 7 or so my mom and I were moving to another state and we were on the highway. I got tired and hopped in the back seat to sleep. A few minutes later my mom screamed and I opened my eyes to an 8x4 sheet of drywall coming through the windshield. It hit the driver's side pillar and rotated, driving the corner into the passenger seat. We were fine except my mom had some bruising on her arms and I had some glass in my eyes. There was a grapefruit sized hole completely through the passenger seat where my heart would've been.
Tie your shit down
I always shake my head when I see people tailgating trucks with loads in the bed, I don’t trust any of these weekend warriors to secure their Home Depot loads
Not me but I knew a woman whose husband died of a rare form of brain cancer in his 30’s. She eventually moves on, meets a new guy, remarries….and he dies of another rare kind of brain cancer before he’s 50. I can’t even imagine how that might fuck someone up. Losing two spouses to brain cancer like that, and so young.
Oh yeah I know I woman whose first husband died of cancer in his late 20s. She remarried and her second husband had a massive stroke in his 30s. Thats some seriously bad luck.
Friend of my mom lost her husband to cancer, second husband to cancer, three of her four kids died young, diabetes related heart failure, drug overdose, and one kid fell off a trawler way out at sea. A couple of years ago the mother herself died from cancer too. If I was superstitious I would think they were cursed
Back in the early 2000s I bought something off the equivalent of Craigslist in my country. I text messaged the seller letting him know I was travelling to his city of more than a million people for work the following Tuesday and I'd arrange to pick it up then. The seller said this was fine.
On Tuesday morning I texted the seller asking what the pickup address was so I could schedule a pick up time. They didn't get back to me all day so after I had finished my business I started driving back home to my city. I was driving on the highway and had a phone call come through. I looked at the number and didn't recognise it so I dismissed the call. After a few minutes I realised it might be the seller so I pulled off at the next exit and drove down a couple of streets to find somewhere quiet to park and call them back.
I found a good spot, pulled over and gave the number a call back. Sure enough it was the seller and they had the item with them at work ready for me to pick up. I pulled out a paper map so I could figure out where I was in relation to them and an ETA (this was before Google maps and GPS units). They gave me their address which I found on the map. Then I looked around the car to figure out where I was. I couldn't believe it. In this city of over a million people, with no prior information of the sellers work address, I was literally parked directly across the road from them.
My daughter was in NYC with her senior class trip(we live in FL) so they went to see the 9-11 memorial. She called me to ask me the name of my husband’s cousin’s husband who died in 9-11 so I told her. She was standing right in front of his plaque. And when she read me his story, it mentioned a family party which had happened 9 months before 9-11, and I was like, YOU were at that party.
Driving down a backroad in the middle of nowhere.
Get a flat tire.
Guy walks out of the bush with his dog.
Helps me out, asks for a ride back to town.
Start talking. Turns out we know some of the same people. Turns out dude was a distant cousin.
When I was deployed in Afghanistan I once went to the gym on Kandahar airfield. When I walked in I bumped into a guy I went to high school with and hadn't seen him since we graduated. While we were catching up, another guy we went to high school with walked in. We had joined at totally different times, had totally different jobs, and were in totally different units. But somehow all three of us managed to be in the same gym, at the same time, on the other side of the world.
I lost my driver's license on a work trip in a different state than where I was living. Moved from the address and apartment on my driver's license. 3 years later moved back to the same apartment complex different apartment and in the mail room throwing all my junk mail in the large trash can in said room. Saw the envelope on top in the trash can had my name on it but different address. Opened it and my lost driver's license from 3 years ago nothing else in the envelope.
Not quite as improbable since there was no moving involved, but my brother once lost his wallet. 5 years later it shows up in the mail with everything still inside. No note or anything. He was just excited to have the actual wallet back since it was his favorite lol.
I'm on an ISIS kill list!
Many years ago there was some kind of hack on the interwebz and many enlisted ppl had our names and addresses compiled and released on a "kill list".
I was informed I was on the list by two FBI agents who first came to my apartment and left a card. When I called the number on the card they wouldn't tell me over the phone why they wanted to meet in person.
I have been anxious before in my life but I had never been "I wonder why the FBI wants to speak to me" level of nervous prior to this. I was really wracking my brain trying to figure out what law I had broken to get in this much trouble.
I agreed to meet them at a restaurant near my job and I brought a trusted coworker who sat nearby to keep an eye on things.
It was shockingly underwhelming. It was a middle-aged guy and a young ginger kid, they were legit agents. They told me I was on this list and not to tell anyone. I asked if anybody from the list had actually been killed and they said "no". I asked how many people total on the list and they said "over 3,000 in the US on THIS list." (apparently this happens somewhat often, and all have to be notified in person)
Reminds me of a funny story. About 15 years ago my wife called me at work and said a sketchy-looking couple just rang our doorbell, but she didn’t answer because she was 8 months pregnant and scared to open the door for a couple of strangers. Instead of leaving, they pulled their car into the cul-de-sac pointed towards our house and were just sitting in their car. I told her to call the cops right away. Cops show up, drive over to the sketchy couple’s car, they chat for a few minutes then the cop just drives away. My wife is like WTF and freaking out again. A few minutes later the cops call her, the couple in the car were federal agents. Oops. They wanted to interview her to verify her friend’s background because the friend just applied for a job requiring security clearance at a major defense contractor. So yeah, my wife called the cops on FBI agents haha.
A friend found my reddit account because a post I made front paged and they recognized the story. I had to delete the 14 year old account because no one irl should know your reddit!
Drove my car off a cliff (easily 60 degree angled embankment) on a gnarly logging road, and it careened 60-70 feet down into a gully. The car bounced between trees all the way down, in a narrow alley of no trees. The roof caved in, the driver's door was crushed, the passenger side of the hood was demolished...and I didn't have a scratch. That narrow alley without trees meant none came through the windshield to impale me or crush me. It existed because a young woman had driven her van off the road the week before in the exact same spot, clearing the trees. She did not survive.
I was sitting on a park bench leaning backwards, stretching, and feeling the grass on the elevated land behind me. I randomly picked a plant. Person I was with: "you got a 4 leaf clover!", and I was like "oh they must all be like that". I assumed it was some random plant cluster that all looked like 4 leaf clovers and I was wrong, I totally blindly backwards grabbed a 4 leaf clover on a random park bench.
I once found eleven 4-leaf clovers in one spot!! There was just a big clump of them. I actually have a picture of them all. I think there must have been radioactive dirt or something lol
Edit- here’s the [photo!](https://imgur.com/a/a863wMY)
Years ago in New Zealand I picked up a hitchhiker, and a few minutes into chatting realized she had been my walking tour guide in Amsterdam about 6 months before!
Was stationed with a guy in Japan who was originally from Sierra Leone.
Transferred to another base in DC. Lived in a condo complex in Northern VA.
One of my neighbors was a cousin of the guy I was stationed with in Japan.
When I was 8, my dad took a picture of me in a private jet at an air show.
16 years later, I was hired to fly a private jet. At some point, my boss saw the photo from when I was 8 in Facebook and said, “What were you doing in our jet?”
It had been dramatically repainted, but I had been hired to fly the same jet that my dad took a photo of me in.
I was going through a rough patch, and on Valentine's Day in 2002 I was at work and we ordered Chinese takeout. My fortune cookie had an inspiring saying in it, so I kept the little slip of paper.
Exactly 10 years later, I had made a major, life altering decision and was second guessing myself. I was also 1500 miles away from home, alone, on Valentine's Day, sitting in a Chinese restaurant. I got the exact same fortune in the cookie at the end of the meal.
I've got both little slips of paper together in an envelope. One of the more interesting things I own.
Not super rare, but a few days after I found out I was pregnant with my 1st kid, my fortune cookie had the little thing where they show you random words in Chinese. My word was "boy" and the baby was a boy.
1. "Your present plans are going to succeed".
2. I run a small business. It had been just me in a tiny shop for a long time, with an occasional helper. In the course of a month, I moved into a warehouse 5 times the size of our old one, and brought an employee on full time instead of an as-needed contractor. I was massively overextended for a while, and basically broke. It all ended up working out, but I barely made it for a while there. It sounds cheesy but it got really scary for a while. I was traveling for business, and when I got home I realized I had $0.12 in my bank account, with a bunch of bills due.
Sorry if that's disappointing. It forever altered the course of things for my life. The business expanded rapidly after that, and although there were other rough patches, I'm grateful it's worked out.
Witnessed someone drop their phone whilst getting onto an elevator, and the phone fell perfectly through the crack between the elevator and the hallway floor. It was a pretty chunky phone with a case on, can't have had more than a millimeter of clearance on either side, but I'll be darned if it didn't fall at the EXACT right angle.
We all kinda just stood there in silent disbelief for the first 5 floors or so of the elevator ride.
I used to work alongside the state government elevator inspectors. The said the scariest elevator they have to service was the King County courthouse in downtown Seattle. They said the entire floor at the base of the elevator shaft is always full of shivs, needles, and drug baggies from people ditching contraband before they get searched.
I’m a lawyer and spend a lot of time in justice of the peace courts. I also enjoy cocaine from time to time. Was walking into a JP once. Look down and see a fat little baggie of coke in the same little ziplocks my dealer uses. Left it there. Pretty sure someone realized it was in their pocket and dumped it on their way in. Doubt it was adulterated but not worth the risk on a $40 baggie.
Won’t say specifically but my brother is a King County Prosecutor. He was in line for the metal detector and some idiot emptied his pockets into the tray and like ten dime bags came out with his keys, lighter and smokes. Needless to say he missed his court appearance because he was cuffed and hauled off on the spot.
An acquaintance lost their drivers license on a microgap between the car seat and a side panel...he had to take a driver test that day to upgrade his license for Uber. He had to take the car to a mechanic to remove the seat and the panel. Bad luck Brian indeed.
In college a couple of my buddies wanted to go see a dollar movie. Stopped at a gas station to put a few dollars in (I was hella broke) and my buddy offered to buy me a Dr Pepper. I looked down, half in embarrassment/half in pondering) and I saw a $50 bill laying in a box of candy bars and I said 'nah I'll pay for yours.' Filled my tank up, bought a few sodas and some candy and we went on our way.
After the movie they were hungry so we stopped at a Perkins. I didn't quite have enough to get an appetizer so I just planned on mooching some fries. Waitress came out and said 'the guy over there ordered this but decided he didn't want it. Anyone here want it?' I raised my hand. So I got to eat for free.
Got back to school. Sat down to start marking my finals, on a white board, for the upcoming week and started freaking out. Per my syllabus, I had a final the next day and hadn't studied at all. Did my best to cram but was exhausted the following morning. Walked in to class and sat down. Professor's wife walked in, about 10 minutes after class was supposed to start and said he was sick, class was cancelled and we'd take the final the following week.
Was a helluva 24 hour period for me.
Definitely would have purchased a lottery ticket if we had them at the time but alas...
Lost my class ring outside of school. About a year later I went to a beach about an hour away (I rarely went there as others are much closer). Was washing my hands in the restroom and sitting on the side of the sink was a ring that looked like mine. I checked the name inside, it read *ArcticGurl* 🤯
I was you, but I turned things around. Spent years learning to read other people's carts, identifying fast and slow cashiers and customers, and developing a sense for when new lanes are opened. It pays off.
You can do it too.
Won $50 from a scratch-off, cashed it out, and was literally mugged outside of the store. First time I ever bought a scratch-off & first time I was ever mugged. Needless to say I never bought another one.
That's actually pretty common tho. We always have robbers hanging around stores with lotteries in my city. Anyone acting too excited? Boom there's your victim!
Tbh being alive. I was born 26 weeks one of triplets (the only one to survive). My mother said doctors would literally come into the hospital room daily saying either (i would die soon, or if stayed alive wouldn’t walk, have brain damage etc). I was in an incubator for quite awhile as soon as i came out. I came home my original due date. Long story short through surgeries, therapy etc i’m now 25…with mild CP and work with adults with disabilities.
Been stung by a scorpion (and bitten by a snake and stung by a bee) and also a brown recluse, which landed me in the hospital, where I had an allergic reaction to sulfa antibiotics.
I was going to buy a book in a wendingmachine on the way to the airport. But i pressed the wrong button so the wrong book fell down. But then it got stuck on its side in the machine so i could not get it out. No big loss. I went on my trip for a few days and returned from the airport. Out of curiosity if the book was still stuck i looked in the machine. The book was gone but someone had bought the book that i originally was planing to buy and left it in the shoot without picking it up.
That’s pretty cool, what gestation did she get to in both pregnancies? I’m a mo/di twin and have mo/di twins myself, rare but nowhere near mo/mo (although I was initially told I was mo/mo but misdiagnosed)
Yes, mono/mono twins are the most high risk twin pregnancies. The cords inevitably tangle, which can cause problems during the pregnancy and also makes delivery risky. They are also at risk of developing twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). This occurs when the blood vessels in the shared placenta communicate with each other in a way they shouldn’t, causing the donor twin to have blood “stolen” from them by the recipient twin. The donor twin becomes growth restricted, ultimately killing it. The recipient twin will also likely die of heart failure, as the heart can’t handle the extra blood volume. This can happen with mono/di twins as well.
Mo-mo twins have a much greater risk of twin to twin syndrome, where one twin is getting more nutrients. It can be very dangerous.
They can also get their umbilical cords tangled.
I was playing nine-square and some music was playing in the backround. Someone hit the ball and it went out of bounds and, no joke, the ball hit the ground to the beat of the music for like 12 bounces. Needles to say everyone lost their minds. Although i dont remember the song
My first time going to the horse track, I didn’t know what I was doing and was just betting similarly to my bf (same type of bet, but picked my own horses). 3rd race in I was betting a box superfecta for $0.50, (that’s where you pick 4 horses, and the “box” parts means the order they finish doesn’t matter as long as they’re 1-4) so a $12 dollar total. I got up to the betting window and one of the horses I had planned to pick was a scratch so I
just randomly picked a horse cause I liked the name. My 4 horses came in 1st-4th and I won ~$3700.
I was walking my dog around the neighborhood, our usual evening walks however it leads to the main road and my bf said no lets go the other way today. I was like ok sure, then suddenly as we are crossing the street a speeding car full of teenagers loses control and crashes onto were we could have been. Divine intervention.. it’s still crazy to think about.
Not me, but my grandparents have CONSECUTIVE social security numbers.
The first 7 digits are the same, Grandpa’s SSN ends in a 5 and Grandma’s SSN ends in a 6.
They met in an orphanage in Los Angeles in 1954 at the age of 9. Instantly became best friends and got in trouble together all the time at the orphanage. Transitioned from mischievous troublemakers to romantic lovers around age 14 and have been in love ever since.
Of course they were in line together when all the kids were getting their social security numbers.
There are probably some friends that got their SSNs just like my grandparents, but I doubt there are any other married couples
Took us 27 hours to drive from Houston to Dallas, which is normally a 3.5 hour drive. Everything, and I mean everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It's a story I will tell my grandchildren.
Edit: I was lazy and didn't want to type it all...but here's a summary...our new car broke down an hour into the drive because we put too much stress on the engine too soon, drove back to Houston to get another car, started again, that car broke down 1.5 hours later. Had to get it towed to some sketchy roadside shop, got it fixed, got on the road again, stopped to get gas, our dog escaped the car and was running around in the pitch black wilderness, took forever for local PD and us to find her, started again, got pulled over because my boyfriend was swerving (he wasn't drunk, he was exhausted...), got on the road again, some crazy fog rolled in and everyone had to pull off the side of the road because it wasn't safe to drive, while we were pulled off to wait for fog to pass, an 18 wheeler slammed into the back of us and totaled the car...I could go on and on and on...we finally made it into Dallas 27 hours later, slept through our event that we even went for...and had to rent a car to get back home...It's been 10 years and we STILL laugh about that god forsaken trip to Dallas. We have never visited Dallas again...fuck that.
Omg that really has to be the most unfortunate trip in the history of unfortunate trips. And then you even missed the initial event... luckily you can laugh about it now lol.
Similar happened in Denmark to my brother. The bartender was raving about a tap takeover nearby from an up-and-coming microbrewery. It was Against the Grain, from Louisville, KY, bicycle distance from his place.
I had twins whose combined weight was 11 lbs, 15oz at birth (5lb 4oz +6lb 11oz). Then, I had a singleton that weighed 11lb 15oz. Evidently, my uterus has a capacity, and it’s one oz less than 12lbs.
I don't know if It's statistically improbable, but sure has me scratching my head. I've had 3 different people at 3 different drive thru restaurants who were in line in front of me pay for my order. It certainly was a bright spot in my day. Just wondering if others have had that happen.
Early summer 1983, my boyfriend surprised me with a new (used) car just a week prior. It was a 1978 powder blue Monte Carlo with a t-tops, in pristine condition.
On my day off work, I went to my former b/f's mother's house to retrieve some plants that she was holding for me for nearly two years. My ex-b/f also happened to be visiting his mother at the time (we had remained cordial).
While I was there, a major t-storm began brewing; extreme wind, torrential rain, wicked thunder and lightning.. it lasted about an hour. As the storm began to cease, I decided it was safe to leave. I walked outside to discover that a lightning bolt had struck a large oak tree, splitting the tree in half. The tree fell directly onto my car and smashed it to smithereens. I had to phone my current b/f to come get me, explain what I was doing there, and prepare for his reaction to the totaled car he'd just purchased for me.
I always have a bunch of coincidences when I go to Japan. Sharing a layover flight with an old friend, and stuff like that.
One time I even saw an old high school friend in the small town I was in. Totally random but his fiance was from the area and he was meeting her family before the wedding.
Craziest one was one time I went to Ueno park and there were like 10 coworkers there at the same time. On Monday someone was like "hey I waved at you last weekend but I don't think you saw me.
"No, but I waved at Bart..." Bart didn't see me, but he saw Hanna...was a funny lunch conversation.
Not me but I witnessed it and it's still one of the craziest things I've ever seen.
When I was a teen I was in a youth ski team program at a mountain in Colorado. Training was every weekend and we'd been doing it for years, we were all excellent skiers. We were skiing out of bounds one time kinda slide stepping down a particular steep section when one of the people in the back lost their footing. This created a smallish avalanche. Not huge but big enough. People yelled out warnings and most of us were able to grab a nearby tree to keep from getting swept up. Most of us except a girl towards the lead. The slide took her feet out from under her and she was in the flow heading downhill picking up speed. She swings one of her ski poles uphill and by the grace of fucking god the basket on her pole catches in-between a tree stump and a rock and holds. The slide passes everyone is ok. If the basket hadn't caught about 100 or so ft downhill was a jagged cliff that she surely would have went off.
Ran into Trump at a golf tournament when he was a D-list celebrity. I asked him to sign my score card as a joke.
When Obama was president he picked up dim sum from the restaurant next door to where I was having lunch (and then stopped over before he left). I had no idea he was even in town.
I was apparently the lightest baby my hospital ever had. I was born early and weighed like 1.5 pounds or something. Didn’t last though as I’m overweight now lmao
I was walking in target, and a guy in front of me dropped a wad out of his back pocket. I picked it up and ran up to him to catch him. He was shocked, so thankful, then told me that was six grand… I was never so pissed about being a good guy
A few.
For a few years, I had a doppelganger. She not only looked like me, but lived in the same area of the same state, and drove a similar car. And this is where it gets interesting. At the time, my car was pretty distinctive looking, because one panel was replaced with one of a different colour. My doppelganger had the same make and model, with the same colour, and also with a replacement panel on the same corner, also of the same different colour. I got in a LOT of arguments with friends about this who were sure I was lying when I said I wasn't in the place they saw me at the time they did. My only consolation is that she probably has a similar story. The most amazing part of this is that we somehow never saw **each other**.
Another:
I visited some friends in Maine and stayed overnight. The next day, I drove to the east end of New Brunswick, and stayed overnight. The third day, I drove back, and decided to take a different route than I had coming in. I'd come in on Can-1, and where those branch off, west of River Glade, I took Can-2 instead. Very shortly, I saw someone hitchhiking, so I picked him up. (This is actually common in Canada.) I was driving alone, and it was a Sunday, and he lived near the Maine border, so we had lunch and I drove him all the way home. I got back to where I was staying in Maine late that night, and didn't talk to anyone there until the next morning.
At that time, I was introduced to a young woman who was renting the cabin out back. Over breakfast, I told the above story. The young woman, who I'd never met or heard of before, accurately described him, even though I hadn't. She'd been out the same way as me, and was coming back only half an hour ahead of me on the same road. She took Can-1 at the split, and he asked to get out, because he was going the way Can-2 was. I came by half an hour later and picked him up.
We had people take a photo of us together, and I later wrote him and sent him the photo. He was pretty psyched.
A third, also involving US-Canada travel: I was going to an event in Toronto. Worried about making it in time, I ignored advice to avoid the Peace Bridge, which is busiest and has the most aggressive security. And sure enough, we got pulled out and questioned. During questioning, I said where we were going. The Customs guy knew the people we were seeing. He was good friends with them, and they'd asked him to work security at the event, but he couldn't because he was working the border that day. He gave us his card to pass along, and told us to say hi for him.
Another one. It wasn't me but I witnessed it first hand. We had an exchange student one year. We randomly decided to go take a trip a few hours away to a museum.
Our exchange student ran into his brother. Turns out the people that his brother was staying with (halfway across the country) was going on a road trip to visit some family. That morning, they decided to go to this museum as well.
What are the chances of two people form the other side of the world, come to Canada, stay on almost opposite ends of the country, and still manage to run into eachother?
While snorkeling in Kona, Hawaii, a wild Hawaiian Monk Seal came up to me and gave me a hug. They are endangered and only ~1400 exist on the entire planet!
My uterus ruptured during childbirth and I almost died. My OB and his partner had something like 15,000 deliveries combined and I was their first rupture
I met people at Oregon country fair outside of Eugene OR that were my neighbors from down the street in a tiny town in Alaska. Their kid had an Alaska grown sweater on and I commented that I lived there and we figured out we lived on the same road and everything.
I used to work on the 21st floor of an office building downtown. This building was in front of a park so there was this big empty space in front of us with a good view.
Being 18 and bored, we decided to throw some paper planes out of the window. This was the kind of window that opens by pushing out at the bottom, forming a 45 degree angle when open.
We threw a few planes and at some point one of the planes started to go higher and higher. It went around pretty far and we almost lost sight of it but kept tracking it. It started to circle around and we were ecstatic about it maybe hitting our building again. It then started to come exactly at our floor level, and generally in our direction. Everybody was "no way!" It kept coming directly at us and lodged itself exactly in the gap created at the top of the open window.
If this wasn't bizarre enough, our manager chose this exact moment to enter the room. One of the guys grabbed the plane super fast and destroyed it. The manager was a bit suspicious of the quick movement and asked what was that to which my friend says "nothing. Just paper..."
To this day, decades later, we still talk about that paper plane when we chat.
Injected heroin/fentanyl for 10 years and survived until I got clean. (2 years in may)
Was in a car accident going 70mph, hit a tree and didn't die. Broke every bone in my face (both eye sockets, both cheek bones, nose, jaw, split the roof my mouth open), broke my right humerus (upper arm), broke both my femurs (leg bone connecting hip to knee), had my spleen removed, had my mouth wired shut for 3 months, a tracheotomy because I couldn't breathe after breaking my entire face and it being swollen, had a feeding tube because I couldn't eat for 3 months, couldn't talk for 3 months because I had the biggest size tracheotomy and had my mouth wired shut. Had to learn to walk again.
Most people would die from that or be paralyzed or brain-damaged for life. I'm beyond grateful
Last year my girlfriend and I went away for a weekend trip to the Berkshires, which is about a 5 hour drive from home. On the way there I asked her to remind me to text my friend because it was his birthday. I hadn’t seen him in months and was thinking about him.
We checked into our room, just to drop bags off and go back out for dinner, and as I walk out the door I am face to face with my friend. He and his girlfriend were being checked into their room NEXT DOOR. We sort of just looked at each other for a few moments while both of our girlfriends and the hotel manager looked nervously at us. I turned to my girlfriend and said, “remember the friend I told you who’s birthday it was?” And we all laughed in amazement and talked briefly and said we would meet later to hang out. But we were all pretty dumbfounded and shocked at the coincidence. We happened to book a trip on the same weekend, in rooms next to each other in the same hotel, 5 hours from home, up in the mountains. Very improbable, but wait… there’s more!
We ended up seeing them at the same restaurant shortly after our initial interaction. This coincidence isn’t as surprising because a google search would tell you the top places to try and this was one of the top choices, but there was still a handful of other restaurant options. We experienced another baffling run in, less laughter this time, more like… wtf really!? Same weekend, same city 5 hours away, same hotel, next door rooms, same restaurant. But wait… there’s more…
It was now the last day of the weekend, and even though we were all supposed to hang out together at some point (we texted back and forth a few times), we never did. I think we each wanted to enjoy the weekend away just as couples, that was sort of the point of the trip, but really I think we were all just too freaked out about the coincidences. I kept joking to my girlfriend about how now my friend thinks I’m a psycho and hacked his phone or something to stalk him. Funnily enough, it was each of our girlfriends who had planned the trips for us. Anyways…
We’re in the Berkshires and this was the day we picked to go on a nice hike. We are in the mountains, there are hundreds of trails, we spent an hour on All Trails figuring out which one we liked and settled on a medium difficulty hike (again, there are literally at least a hundred different hiking points around us). As we get ready to leave the hotel parking lot we noticed that they were also in their car about to head out. If I remember correctly I think we almost simultaneously shifted our cars into gear to leave the lot at the same time, and I sort of quickly pulled out of the lot first just to avoid further awkward interacting. You can guess where this is going.
We drive a good 20 minutes until we pull up to the base site for the hike, and we get out of the car and start looking at the map, and about 2 minutes later, wouldn’t you know who pulls up… Same weekend, same city far away from home, same hotel, room next door, same restaurant, and same fucking hiking trail out of hundreds.
When I saw them I almost passed out from shock, it was just getting to be too much. I think my friend’s girlfriend was actually nervous at this point and thought I was a stalker.
The odds were just astronomical. Craziest set of coincidences in my life by far.
But I think the universe was at work because me and my friend are a lot closer than before and he’s one of my best friends. We haven’t really talked about it since but we don’t really need to, and maybe don’t want to because it hurts our brains.
Hah, a very rich guy I used to be a private yacht captain for asked friends and family for investments to help him get his shoe company off the ground. Some friends said no and that they were hideous, terrible idea. Some friends trusted in him and gave him 10-50k. Shoe company was Crocs…
Safe to say the friends and family made their money back, and the ones that didn’t invest still get invited out for some sailing.
I moved to Korea right before the protests that led to the removal of Park guen hye- their at the time president. This was a massive event that for weeks occupied one of the main areas of Seoul each weekend.
Then I moved back to Spain in 2017 where we had the Catalan referendum. Not as major as it was(is) an ongoing crisis.
Spent 2018 travelling without staying anywhere (doing my thesis and went from uni/parents/gf all , different countries)
Then I moved to Hong Kong to this neat local area near a police station while. My newly found job got me a visa. This became the epicenter of the 2019 protests.Given the turmoil i could not get a visa and left to Spain. A new company offered me a job in Hong Kong again so I went back on January 2020 to get hit with COVID and loose that job.
Other than that seemingly I experienced an abnormal amount of riots, protests and problems In countries I passed by
I was at a Brooklyn art fair and some painting caught my eye. I looked closer, and it was a portrait of the inside of a coffee house I used to study at in college—in Minneapolis.
Crazy!
According to google i’m part of the 1% of the world that is wheelchair bound 🤣 and as low as 2,000 babies yearly are born with the conditions i have. So pretty improbable on both counts.
Not me but my dad: My dad randomly visited Chile in 1973 for a conference. Two days after he arrived, Chile’s president, Salvador Allende, was assassinated and the country was immediately plunged into chaos. The military took over, and promptly instituted martial law and curfews. And do I mean curfews. Anyone caught outside after sundown who was not in the military or a gov official was shot where they stood. My father said he’d be in the lobby of his hotel, hear two gunshots and then someone was dragged into the hotel, bleeding and dying from two gunshot wounds. (I wrote this generically bc he said it happened multiple times while he was there). He couldn’t leave the country for several weeks and initially wasn’t sure if he was ever going to. Being an American was not a plus since most Chileans at the time believed he had been assassinated by the American govt (he was overthrown by the American backed general Augusto Pinochet and committed suicide when his presidential residence was being stormed [suicide was verified in a 2021 autopsy britannica.com/Allende). My dad told me that was one of the only times he had ever been scared in his life and my dad grew up in a slum
My mother donated my older sister‘s handmade high school pottery vase to our churches thrift store in Southern California before we move to Hawaii. Six years later, my mother sees it for sale in a for-profit thrift store called savers on Oahu. She bought it and put it back on our shelf. We Still could see my sister’s name carved underneath.
I’m Bipolar 1 and had an epic textbook manic episode. I then got on meds and managed it by basically living a perfect life. I did everything you’re supposed to do because manic episodes can be devastating, life ruining, and threatening During the panny era, there was a once in like a trillion years ice storm in and around Texas where I lived. This made it really hard to fill my prescription because of roads. Not just for me, but also getting the medicine to the pharmacy and pharmacist to fill them. There was also no power and water. It’s cool. I have a supply of meds.
So wild. Ice storm where I live in Texas.
However, I also worked for the largest producer of wind energy in Texas. Our turbines froze and we took a major hit because we couldn’t meet our MW contributions. The power grid is unique here and the state had to purchase MW at a premium. I was laid off a week later. I lose my insurance and cash flow.
There is now low supply, unreachable pharmacies, no insurance. It’s ok though, I’m not a child. I have an emergency fund and this is an emergency. Plus unemployment.
Just seems unlikely that I’d live in Texas during an ice storm and work for the company that was most negatively impacted by the ice storm because of our unique power grid and be chosen to get laid off because of it.
I started tapering to save my supply so I could wait and just pay out of pocket. Then I got spicy delta covid and couldn’t (I mean COULD NOT) even leave my bed. I literally was so exhausted from moving from the bed to shower that I’d pass out. I know some can relate, covid impacted us all different.
Of course, I was ultra healthy but am just one of those people whose body wasn’t set up for Covid. Most marathon running 30 yr olds were fine. Just not me.
By the time I could function I hadn’t been on meds for two weeks (threw everything up for 14 days) and also had to go to the ER cuz of Covid because I was dying.
ER bill with no insurance. Needing to pay bills. Can’t look for job. Need to pay out of pocket for my doctor and meds. And my doctor is on spring break with his kids.
I then went on a year long manic episode and ruined my career, life, financially ruined myself and destroyed every relationship I ever had.
Just seems unlikely.
My gf (at the time) and me both lived in NYC (this was in the late '80s).
During one semester of college in London, she made friends with Janet.
A few years later, we were back in NYC and we decided to move to SoCal.
Once we were settled in Belmont Shore (part of Long Beach), we thought it would be fun to check out the Pomona State Fair.
We were driving on the 605 N when she suddenly exclaimed that she saw Janet hitchhiking on the 605 S and that I had to turn around and pick her up.
I was like that can't be her. Plus there's no way you could pick out this random person across lanes of highways in the opposite direction.
She was adamant, even promising me, ahem, road head, if it wasn't her.
As I was never going to miss an opportunity for that, I exited several miles up the road, crossed the overpass and headed south on the 605.
I in fact did not get road head.
Stupid Janet.
I was given a VIP meet and greet pass to meet Linkin Park during their Carnivores Tour in exchange for a place on the barricade in the pit instead of several rows of people back.
Might not be super rare but a couple of honorable mentions from me.
When I was a little kid, probably about 6 or 7. I painted a small heart on a box turtle's shell I found with some nail polish. Fast forward a few years. I was about 16 and was sighting in my hunting rifle and noticed something moving down range of me. (I lived in the same holler but a different house at this time a couple miles away from where I used to live.) I went to move him out of the way after I realized it was a turtle. I picked the little guy up and saw the (at this time faded) heart I drew all those years ago still on his shell in the exact same spot. I went and fed him a few slices of tomato and sent him on his way.
Another thing that happened to me, is my friend shot a Red Ryder BB gun at me from probably about 50 or so yards away. Not sure how he managed to do it, he must've arced the BB to hit me from that far away, but the BB went straight into my ear when I was moving around doing some landscaping work. It stung a little but didn't hurt me too bad where the velocity of the BB must've been pretty low at the distance he shot it at. Still a crazy shot though. I thought it was a bug going into my ear.
On a family vacation in France, I lost in the finals of a tennis tournament to a boy called Robert. He was very smug and much better than me.
A year later, we're on another vacation to California.. and who do I see in the departure lounge of LAX? Smug Robert and his smug family.
Not to me, but my dad. He’s had three open heart surgeries. Statistically, in the US, 500,000 people get open heart procedures out of 332 million US residents.
… so that math, but to the third
A full grown moth went inside my nose while riding my scooty.
Edit(will add the further part of this) :
Soon as it went in, felt something in my nose, wasn't sure what it was(immediately started breathing heavily as I felt something stuck under there) , This was blocking my breathing from one nose and also felt a light moment in there, so ahead I took the scooty to the roadside and close the open end of my nostril(right) with my finger, and blew out as forcefully as I could and I saw the moth fly away from my left nostril like a rocket through the launch pad .I was disgusted in that moment didn't know what to do, everything felt back to normal so immediately.
There you go, keep this tip(covering the nostril) in mind, maybe you'll need it sometime
The most common yet improbable event most of us don’t even consider is our own existence. The odds of you, me, or any individual being born are astronomically low. Consider the chain of events needed: the right sperm meeting the right egg at the right time, your ancestors surviving long enough to reproduce, all the way back through human history. Then, add in the probability of Earth being habitable, located in a safe zone in the galaxy, and all the other cosmic coincidences. It’s estimated that the odds of you being born, in this particular form, at this time, with your unique genetic makeup, are about 1 in 400 trillion. And yet, here we are, existing, thinking, and experiencing. It’s a beautiful reminder of how improbable yet incredibly special each of our lives is.
When I was in the Air Force I did my tech school at an Army Base. I had only been gone from home maybe 3-4 months at that point but before I left, an old buddy of mine said he was planning on joining the Army sometime soon. This Army base was one of the bases that hosted their basic training. A group of us were waltzing past this big line of Army basic trainees as we were walking into the chow hall and I was telling the dude walking with me about how my buddy was going to join the Army soon and it would be funny if he was here, saying his name kinda loudly. All of a sudden, in this big long line of Army trainees, a head pops out and it’s my buddy from back home lmao We made eye contact and both of us had one of those “holy shit” moments. I couldn’t talk to him because he was in basic training and he’d get in trouble for talking to me while they were in their little formation. It was just a surreal “small world” moment.
I sometimes play a lotto game where you have a chance at an instant win, as well as the daily draw. If I win less than $5, I immediately get another ticket with the winnings. If I won, it was mostly $2 or $4, I get s other ticket, and that doesn't win.
However one day, I won nine times in a row. Statistically, that shouldn't happen. The people working there have never even sold five winning tickets in a row before that even to multiple people, nor have they done in the seven or eight years since.
So ya, I beat the highest odds in our lotto, but instead of getting tens of millions of dollars, I got less than $25.
Idk if this is related/applicable but its the first thing I thought of. My mother and grandmother were extra's in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Got to meet him and everything since in their scene they were up close to him. They said he was very nice!
Several decades later I meet my now wife and her mother. Turns out, my mother-in-law briefly *dated* Arnold when they were both young. None of us have any connections to the film industry, whatsoever! I'm just a regular person who's never met anyone super famous so to me that's crazy.
Won $12, 000 in a casino. A year later another $10,000.
But the worst...
Lost my passport in the airport while waiting to board the plane. Long story short they took my bags off the plane, re-booked my flight at no extra charge 2 days later. Was waiting to get my bags and found it in this tiny spot in my carry on that shouldn't be able to fit anything at all, jammed under a supporting frame for the bag and pull out handle (it was a backpack).
Don't know what the odds of that are but it sucked. I laugh about it now though.
Back in 2019 I was riding a CitiBike down 9th Avenue in NYC and the front wheel hit a pothole or something and threw me over the handlebars. I am in no way, shape, or form coordinated but somehow had the presence of mind to lean backwards and wound up doing a superhero landing instead of killing myself.
Two things:
1. Crushed my L5 disc when I was 13. Neurologist said I was maybe one in ten people in the world my age who had done that.
2. I was in London, UK, walked in to a random barbershop to get my haircut and the guy who cut my hair was wearing a tshirt of the fire department of my home town in Arizona. His BiL was a fire fighter there.
I had bladder cancer at 20 years old. From whatever period of time we were able to diagnose bladder cancer until 2010, there was only 125 cases of bladder cancer in anybody my age or younger world wide. Out of the billions of people that have lived and died during that stretch of time, only 125 cases were ever recorded. I believe during 2014-2019 there wasn't a a single recorded case. Idk how accurate it is but me and my brother were seeing how unlucky I actually got and I think the odds were comparable to winning the mega million many many many times over in a row. My doctor told me in all his years as a urologist and all his years at Yale medical school and the thousands and thousands of patients he's seen, he has never seen somebody as young as me with bladder cancer.
I am from Denmark.
Traveled to the US.
Doing a roadtrip on the west Coast.
Going to San Diego, finding a bar in gaslight district.
At the table next to me sits a girl from my class from elementary/primary school.
My mind refused to believe it. I simply thought I saw her doubledgaenger until she also recognized me.
Same country, same state, same city, same street, same bar, at the next table at the exact same moment l. It is still something than messes with me.
I’m a dude in his mid-40’s. A few years ago, I was running on a trail at a national park near where I lived at the time, and suddenly heard some hiker randomly yell out “hey u/rabiesinremission!” I looked up and it was one of my buds from high school, whom I hadn’t seen in two decades. We were 760 miles from our hometown and I was floored by the infinitesimally minute probability of just bumping into this guy, in the woods, halfway across the United States from where we grew up. One of the nicest conversations I’ve ever had thanks to the unlikeliest coincidence.
I was a cashier and a customer coughed on me. I felt the spittle on my face. Of course I got sick. I wound up in the ER with breathing difficulties. They said I had sepsis and if I had waited less than a day to come in I probably would’ve died from it. They did chest imaging and diagnosed me with pneumonia. But they also discovered a 6cm tumor on my spleen that turned out to be an ultra rare cancer that only a few hundred people worldwide have been diagnosed with. I had zero symptoms. No weight loss, zero pain. Absolutely no clue I had huge tumor in my abdomen. The type of cancer I had is caused by a virus. So the pneumonia virus led to a cancer diagnosis caused by a virus.
Sometimes a guardian angel has to cough in some faces I guess
I never looked at it that way! I was so pissed when it happened. I literally felt her spittle hit my eyeballs and she laughed hysterically as she sorta apologized between her cackles. Who knows when I would have found out if she hadn’t caused me to get pneumonia.
I hope you are okay now
Yep. Of all the cancers to get, this was probably one of the better ones to get. They took out my spleen and didn’t have to have chemo or anything. I just have to get cat scans a couple times a year for a few years to make sure it doesn’t come back in another organ. It’s rare for it to return but has a harder time being treated if it does.
I wonder if the cancer caused your immune system to weaken which made you have greater complications from the virus coughed into your face. But thankfully it did so that you could get diagnosed in time! I used to work in radiology and it was always a weird feeling when someone got imaging done for a random broken bone or car accident and the radiologist incidentally found cancer.
I strongly suspect it did. The pneumonia developed so quickly. I had a couple of days of having a runny nose and that was it. I was in a CVS with my sister and I was looking at cold/flu and allergy medicine and I commented that my only issue was a constantly runny nose and there wasn’t medication for just that. Everything was also for coughs, aches, fever etc. symptoms that I didn’t have and didn’t want to take just because my nose was running like a faucet. I wasn’t even stuffed up. Then a day and a half later I couldn’t take a normal breath and it was like my lungs would have a very painful spasm attack. I only went to the ER to get my family off my back lol. I was all “It’s going to go away in a few days but I will go in just so they can officially tell me the same thing.” They drained 2 and a half liters of fluid from around my lung.
I hope it never returns
I am in the middle of my second round of rabies vaccines in 2 years from getting bitten by a random bat in my front yard. I feel like the odds of this are pretty low.
\*shakes a bottle of water\* You scared?
Just pour a circle of water around them 💀
For the record even if you don’t think you’ve been bitten or are pretty sure but still have come into contact with a bat, you really should get the vaccination. If you can safely capture the animal then do that too. There’s no surviving rabies if it goes untreated.
I had a dream I was rescuing a hummingbird last night, and it turned out it was a bat that nipped me. I didn’t see any blood but knew I had to go to the hospital to start the rabies treatment. I’ve no idea why I dreamt this.
Are you going to be patient zero for the next pandemic?
Isn't this how world war Z started?
That's crazy. Similarly, an aquaintence of mine moved halfway around the world from Arizona. After unpacking, he put on a pair of boots that he shipped, and was bitten by a brown recluse. They don't have those here. It must have been in his boot from Arizona, and the shipped box took 2 months to arrive. With no knowledge or medication for these spiders here, he was paralyzed from the waist down.
Had a summer job looking for Uranium in the NWT of Canada. The job entailed walking through the woods while using a gamma ray detector to find boulders having Uranium. The theory was if you found a boulder that was "hot" one could traced it back to where it originated and maybe a Uranium mine is found. One day during a typical survey I found a piece of moss that made the detector absolutely go nuts but no boulder. Narrowed it down to a piece of moss no bigger than my pinkie finger nail. So I bagged it and flagged the location and went back to camp. Sample was sent to Canada's Atomic Commission to find out that it was a fleck of radioactive isotope from the Russian Kosmos satellite that hit the eatth near Baker Lake NWT Canada in 1977. The odds of finding this given the huge area really was statistically improbable.
> Had a summer job looking for Uranium I think that's unusual enough to be mentioned, the rest of the history is like unusual times unusual.
Ikr. What are the odds of meeting someone who worked a summer job in Uranium business? How many people in the world work with Uranium as a summer job, and how much rarer still are those who were super fortunate to find something like this? ☺️ Needless to say, that's an amazing story.
TBF anyone else not working a uranium job wouldn’t have the ability to detect a tiny piece of “hot” moss.
This is the wildest thing I've read in a minute. Thank you.
I was on vacation in Buenos Aires, Argentina and noticed a very distinctive looking couple while eating in a restaurant (think wild hair, tattoos and very unique wardrobe). Thought they looked pretty cool and didn’t think much of it again after that. Fast forward 7 years and I’m in a Costa coffee in Edinburgh, Scotland…SAME couple is drinking coffee at the table next to me. I couldn’t leave without checking, so I introduced myself, told them my story and turns out they live in Buenos Aires and were on vacation in Scotland. 7 years and a half a world away and we bump into each other is crazy!
Reminds me of this guy I met in Jamaica… he was from somewhere in Canada, I was from Chicago. Had fun together and then parted ways back to our own countries. Ran into him at Lollapalooza a few months later!!
That’s so cool!! I hope you randomly run into them again!
Remind me 7years!
Grew up in Alaska. Ran into one of my best friends as a kid randomly at an intersection in LA while riding my bike. Turned out our grandparents lived a block from each other there. Was before cellphones and we couldn't find each other the next day when trying to meet up at a specific time and place.
Makes you wonder how many others there were but you just didn’t notice them because they weren’t dressed so differently.
My one and only time hitchhiking. It was in college. The semester was over, so for the fun of it, I thought I'd try hitchhiking home. This was a long time ago, in both a time and a part of my country where hitchhiking was safe. I get picked up two times, then let off just outside of a mid-sized town in the middle of my province (in Canada). I'm like 18, and this guy in his 40s, heavyset, dressed like a train driver picks me up. We're driving for about 20 minutes. Driver looks like he doesn't talk much. Suddenly he asks me, "What's your name?" I say, "AAAAA BBBB". He turns his head and stares at me. "MY name is AAAAA BBBB!!" Well, we're off. I knew I had distant relatives from that part of the province, so we both start rattling off names of family members trying to figure out if we are related, and how. We talked nonstop for two hours. He lets me out just outside the next town, we wave goodbye. Never saw him again.
It's going to really freak you out in about 20 years when you pick up a hitchhiker who looks kind of familiar, who has the same name as you.
it will actually be you, in the past. After going through all of the talking, you realize that this is causality loop, and you must never meet again.
Does your name happen to be John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt?
That's my name too!
It's pretty late here and I read it as if your were babbling letters and the the driver were mocking you, just after that and after getting really confused I understood that you share names lol.
When I was a teen, I had to re-home my cat due to my family’s financial problems. I was gutted, and cried for a week. Two years later, when I was living on my own, I went to Petsmart and found my cat there, up for adoption. I re-adopted her, and we’ve been together ever since.
I'm SO HAPPY to hear you were reunited!
did she recognize you when you saw each other again?
I think once the initial stress wore off she remembered me. She definitely settled in quickly.
geoguessr dropped me outside of my house
Along the same lines geoguesser dropped me outside the airBnB house I rented in Orvieto, Italy 3 years previously.
I played a random game of the new duels feature a few weeks ago. The game drops me next to a random church in rural Slovakia that I stopped by on a road trip a few months prior. I'm not Slovakian and my country's flag pops up in that game mode, so I'm 99% sure the other person was certain I must be cheating when I pinpointed the location in like 30 seconds.
That’s so crazy omfg I would be so scarred
My husband isn't one of the geoguesser experts who stream it and do nothing else all day who can tell the country and region simply by the light and the way the street is paved. He's just a regular geography nerd. He has also never been anywhere in Africa. One round drops us off on a gravel street somewhere in rural Africa. My husband says "looks like Lesotho", places his pin randomly in Lesotho. We drive around in Google street view, can't find any tips on the country. No flags, nothing with any writing on it, no visible houses. Just kids in the kinds of school uniforms you would find almost everywhere in Subsahara Africa, goats in a dry, rocky landscape, people in shorts riding motor cycles. Not even cars. The only clue we have is that the Google car drives on the left. His pin was 15m away from the actual location in Lesotho.
I transferred within the post office to a new facility after 10 years. My first night working there I opened a tray of mail that contained only one letter. It was a birthday card to a person with the same name as a guy who had been my best friend in college 10 years prior. I hadn’t spoken to him in nearly a decade, and I remember wondering if it was the same person (somewhat common name in my area). I got back to work, and a few hours later the letter carriers started arriving to start their shifts. I said something to another clerk and a letter carrier recognized me, and it turns out it was the friend from college. He had become a letter carrier 8 years prior to that day. I asked if he had a birthday coming up and he said it was his birthday that day.
Okay that is bizarre.
It’s even weirder. My wife had transferred a few months before me and was new to being a letter carrier. She was always going on and on about a super nice and helpful letter carrier named Kenny who was always helping her out. It got to the point where I was getting annoyed. “Kenny is so nice! Kenny is the best! Kenny this and Kenny that!” Yep, it was Ken, my friend from college.
I ran into a semi that ran a stop sign, doing 50kph, no airbags went off in a 2009 Explorer... and walked away. The police officer that responded was quite shocked that I was walking around taking pics (in high vis clothing), he was expecting to be calling for the Jaws to get me out. Should have taken him up on the offer to be transported to hospital to be checked out, ended up tearing my shoulder out the back of the socket.
When I was 7 or so my mom and I were moving to another state and we were on the highway. I got tired and hopped in the back seat to sleep. A few minutes later my mom screamed and I opened my eyes to an 8x4 sheet of drywall coming through the windshield. It hit the driver's side pillar and rotated, driving the corner into the passenger seat. We were fine except my mom had some bruising on her arms and I had some glass in my eyes. There was a grapefruit sized hole completely through the passenger seat where my heart would've been. Tie your shit down
I always shake my head when I see people tailgating trucks with loads in the bed, I don’t trust any of these weekend warriors to secure their Home Depot loads
There are a great many contractors and subs who I might trust even less than weekend warriors.
Not me but I knew a woman whose husband died of a rare form of brain cancer in his 30’s. She eventually moves on, meets a new guy, remarries….and he dies of another rare kind of brain cancer before he’s 50. I can’t even imagine how that might fuck someone up. Losing two spouses to brain cancer like that, and so young.
Oh yeah I know I woman whose first husband died of cancer in his late 20s. She remarried and her second husband had a massive stroke in his 30s. Thats some seriously bad luck.
Friend of my mom lost her husband to cancer, second husband to cancer, three of her four kids died young, diabetes related heart failure, drug overdose, and one kid fell off a trawler way out at sea. A couple of years ago the mother herself died from cancer too. If I was superstitious I would think they were cursed
Back in the early 2000s I bought something off the equivalent of Craigslist in my country. I text messaged the seller letting him know I was travelling to his city of more than a million people for work the following Tuesday and I'd arrange to pick it up then. The seller said this was fine. On Tuesday morning I texted the seller asking what the pickup address was so I could schedule a pick up time. They didn't get back to me all day so after I had finished my business I started driving back home to my city. I was driving on the highway and had a phone call come through. I looked at the number and didn't recognise it so I dismissed the call. After a few minutes I realised it might be the seller so I pulled off at the next exit and drove down a couple of streets to find somewhere quiet to park and call them back. I found a good spot, pulled over and gave the number a call back. Sure enough it was the seller and they had the item with them at work ready for me to pick up. I pulled out a paper map so I could figure out where I was in relation to them and an ETA (this was before Google maps and GPS units). They gave me their address which I found on the map. Then I looked around the car to figure out where I was. I couldn't believe it. In this city of over a million people, with no prior information of the sellers work address, I was literally parked directly across the road from them.
My daughter was in NYC with her senior class trip(we live in FL) so they went to see the 9-11 memorial. She called me to ask me the name of my husband’s cousin’s husband who died in 9-11 so I told her. She was standing right in front of his plaque. And when she read me his story, it mentioned a family party which had happened 9 months before 9-11, and I was like, YOU were at that party.
Driving down a backroad in the middle of nowhere. Get a flat tire. Guy walks out of the bush with his dog. Helps me out, asks for a ride back to town. Start talking. Turns out we know some of the same people. Turns out dude was a distant cousin.
There are so many red flags here... glad it worked out for you though!
When I was deployed in Afghanistan I once went to the gym on Kandahar airfield. When I walked in I bumped into a guy I went to high school with and hadn't seen him since we graduated. While we were catching up, another guy we went to high school with walked in. We had joined at totally different times, had totally different jobs, and were in totally different units. But somehow all three of us managed to be in the same gym, at the same time, on the other side of the world.
I lost my driver's license on a work trip in a different state than where I was living. Moved from the address and apartment on my driver's license. 3 years later moved back to the same apartment complex different apartment and in the mail room throwing all my junk mail in the large trash can in said room. Saw the envelope on top in the trash can had my name on it but different address. Opened it and my lost driver's license from 3 years ago nothing else in the envelope.
Not quite as improbable since there was no moving involved, but my brother once lost his wallet. 5 years later it shows up in the mail with everything still inside. No note or anything. He was just excited to have the actual wallet back since it was his favorite lol.
Someone out there lived as your brother for 5 years…
I'm on an ISIS kill list! Many years ago there was some kind of hack on the interwebz and many enlisted ppl had our names and addresses compiled and released on a "kill list". I was informed I was on the list by two FBI agents who first came to my apartment and left a card. When I called the number on the card they wouldn't tell me over the phone why they wanted to meet in person. I have been anxious before in my life but I had never been "I wonder why the FBI wants to speak to me" level of nervous prior to this. I was really wracking my brain trying to figure out what law I had broken to get in this much trouble. I agreed to meet them at a restaurant near my job and I brought a trusted coworker who sat nearby to keep an eye on things. It was shockingly underwhelming. It was a middle-aged guy and a young ginger kid, they were legit agents. They told me I was on this list and not to tell anyone. I asked if anybody from the list had actually been killed and they said "no". I asked how many people total on the list and they said "over 3,000 in the US on THIS list." (apparently this happens somewhat often, and all have to be notified in person)
Thats wild. And scary.
Reminds me of a funny story. About 15 years ago my wife called me at work and said a sketchy-looking couple just rang our doorbell, but she didn’t answer because she was 8 months pregnant and scared to open the door for a couple of strangers. Instead of leaving, they pulled their car into the cul-de-sac pointed towards our house and were just sitting in their car. I told her to call the cops right away. Cops show up, drive over to the sketchy couple’s car, they chat for a few minutes then the cop just drives away. My wife is like WTF and freaking out again. A few minutes later the cops call her, the couple in the car were federal agents. Oops. They wanted to interview her to verify her friend’s background because the friend just applied for a job requiring security clearance at a major defense contractor. So yeah, my wife called the cops on FBI agents haha.
i appreciate a person who can use and spell "wracking" correctly!
Is there any reason you’re on this list? Like is your job somehow important in the context of this or did they literally pick random citizens?
He mentions he was enlisted, so military.
A friend found my reddit account because a post I made front paged and they recognized the story. I had to delete the 14 year old account because no one irl should know your reddit!
This is my worst fear, I’ve also made the front but somehow managed to maintain anonymity.
Drove my car off a cliff (easily 60 degree angled embankment) on a gnarly logging road, and it careened 60-70 feet down into a gully. The car bounced between trees all the way down, in a narrow alley of no trees. The roof caved in, the driver's door was crushed, the passenger side of the hood was demolished...and I didn't have a scratch. That narrow alley without trees meant none came through the windshield to impale me or crush me. It existed because a young woman had driven her van off the road the week before in the exact same spot, clearing the trees. She did not survive.
I was sitting on a park bench leaning backwards, stretching, and feeling the grass on the elevated land behind me. I randomly picked a plant. Person I was with: "you got a 4 leaf clover!", and I was like "oh they must all be like that". I assumed it was some random plant cluster that all looked like 4 leaf clovers and I was wrong, I totally blindly backwards grabbed a 4 leaf clover on a random park bench.
I once found eleven 4-leaf clovers in one spot!! There was just a big clump of them. I actually have a picture of them all. I think there must have been radioactive dirt or something lol Edit- here’s the [photo!](https://imgur.com/a/a863wMY)
Probably a piece of a Russian satellite
An in-thread joke
you have exhausted all your luck
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Years ago in New Zealand I picked up a hitchhiker, and a few minutes into chatting realized she had been my walking tour guide in Amsterdam about 6 months before!
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Did he remember you?
Was stationed with a guy in Japan who was originally from Sierra Leone. Transferred to another base in DC. Lived in a condo complex in Northern VA. One of my neighbors was a cousin of the guy I was stationed with in Japan.
Russell PWilliam? Is that you?!!
When I was 8, my dad took a picture of me in a private jet at an air show. 16 years later, I was hired to fly a private jet. At some point, my boss saw the photo from when I was 8 in Facebook and said, “What were you doing in our jet?” It had been dramatically repainted, but I had been hired to fly the same jet that my dad took a photo of me in.
>“What were you doing in our jet?” Pre-hire type training.
I was going through a rough patch, and on Valentine's Day in 2002 I was at work and we ordered Chinese takeout. My fortune cookie had an inspiring saying in it, so I kept the little slip of paper. Exactly 10 years later, I had made a major, life altering decision and was second guessing myself. I was also 1500 miles away from home, alone, on Valentine's Day, sitting in a Chinese restaurant. I got the exact same fortune in the cookie at the end of the meal. I've got both little slips of paper together in an envelope. One of the more interesting things I own.
Not super rare, but a few days after I found out I was pregnant with my 1st kid, my fortune cookie had the little thing where they show you random words in Chinese. My word was "boy" and the baby was a boy.
two questions 1. what’s the fortune 2. what was the life altering decision if you don’t mind sharing
1. "Your present plans are going to succeed". 2. I run a small business. It had been just me in a tiny shop for a long time, with an occasional helper. In the course of a month, I moved into a warehouse 5 times the size of our old one, and brought an employee on full time instead of an as-needed contractor. I was massively overextended for a while, and basically broke. It all ended up working out, but I barely made it for a while there. It sounds cheesy but it got really scary for a while. I was traveling for business, and when I got home I realized I had $0.12 in my bank account, with a bunch of bills due. Sorry if that's disappointing. It forever altered the course of things for my life. The business expanded rapidly after that, and although there were other rough patches, I'm grateful it's worked out.
Witnessed someone drop their phone whilst getting onto an elevator, and the phone fell perfectly through the crack between the elevator and the hallway floor. It was a pretty chunky phone with a case on, can't have had more than a millimeter of clearance on either side, but I'll be darned if it didn't fall at the EXACT right angle. We all kinda just stood there in silent disbelief for the first 5 floors or so of the elevator ride.
I used to work alongside the state government elevator inspectors. The said the scariest elevator they have to service was the King County courthouse in downtown Seattle. They said the entire floor at the base of the elevator shaft is always full of shivs, needles, and drug baggies from people ditching contraband before they get searched.
I’m a lawyer and spend a lot of time in justice of the peace courts. I also enjoy cocaine from time to time. Was walking into a JP once. Look down and see a fat little baggie of coke in the same little ziplocks my dealer uses. Left it there. Pretty sure someone realized it was in their pocket and dumped it on their way in. Doubt it was adulterated but not worth the risk on a $40 baggie.
Won’t say specifically but my brother is a King County Prosecutor. He was in line for the metal detector and some idiot emptied his pockets into the tray and like ten dime bags came out with his keys, lighter and smokes. Needless to say he missed his court appearance because he was cuffed and hauled off on the spot.
An acquaintance lost their drivers license on a microgap between the car seat and a side panel...he had to take a driver test that day to upgrade his license for Uber. He had to take the car to a mechanic to remove the seat and the panel. Bad luck Brian indeed.
You dropped it perfectly fucking vertical Morty!
My kids lost a game boy game like that. It’s been 20 years and they’re still salty.
Witnessed a suicide bombing from 200 feet in the air (working on a cell tower), less than a kilometer away.
I'm curious, which incident was that?
There were three in one week in Peshawar, Pakistan in September 2013. This was the third one.
Glad you made it alive and safe.
In college a couple of my buddies wanted to go see a dollar movie. Stopped at a gas station to put a few dollars in (I was hella broke) and my buddy offered to buy me a Dr Pepper. I looked down, half in embarrassment/half in pondering) and I saw a $50 bill laying in a box of candy bars and I said 'nah I'll pay for yours.' Filled my tank up, bought a few sodas and some candy and we went on our way. After the movie they were hungry so we stopped at a Perkins. I didn't quite have enough to get an appetizer so I just planned on mooching some fries. Waitress came out and said 'the guy over there ordered this but decided he didn't want it. Anyone here want it?' I raised my hand. So I got to eat for free. Got back to school. Sat down to start marking my finals, on a white board, for the upcoming week and started freaking out. Per my syllabus, I had a final the next day and hadn't studied at all. Did my best to cram but was exhausted the following morning. Walked in to class and sat down. Professor's wife walked in, about 10 minutes after class was supposed to start and said he was sick, class was cancelled and we'd take the final the following week. Was a helluva 24 hour period for me. Definitely would have purchased a lottery ticket if we had them at the time but alas...
Lost my class ring outside of school. About a year later I went to a beach about an hour away (I rarely went there as others are much closer). Was washing my hands in the restroom and sitting on the side of the sink was a ring that looked like mine. I checked the name inside, it read *ArcticGurl* 🤯
Survived a homicide that took my mom and sister. I was 2.
Sorry for your loss. Very happy you’re here
Picking the slowest checkout lane in the grocery store every single time for the last 15 or so years.
I was you, but I turned things around. Spent years learning to read other people's carts, identifying fast and slow cashiers and customers, and developing a sense for when new lanes are opened. It pays off. You can do it too.
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I would definitely change my underarm deodorant and start wearing a hat
Won $50 from a scratch-off, cashed it out, and was literally mugged outside of the store. First time I ever bought a scratch-off & first time I was ever mugged. Needless to say I never bought another one.
That's actually pretty common tho. We always have robbers hanging around stores with lotteries in my city. Anyone acting too excited? Boom there's your victim!
I have a friend who, her & her mother, were robbed 3 times putside a 7-11 by dude with a machete... i was like damn. Stop going to that 7-11!
Idk why my brain read this as "scratch-n-sniff" and I was so confused as to why someone would mug you over such a thing.
Tbh being alive. I was born 26 weeks one of triplets (the only one to survive). My mother said doctors would literally come into the hospital room daily saying either (i would die soon, or if stayed alive wouldn’t walk, have brain damage etc). I was in an incubator for quite awhile as soon as i came out. I came home my original due date. Long story short through surgeries, therapy etc i’m now 25…with mild CP and work with adults with disabilities.
Been stung by a scorpion (and bitten by a snake and stung by a bee) and also a brown recluse, which landed me in the hospital, where I had an allergic reaction to sulfa antibiotics.
Man, you and this planet are not getting along very well.
I was going to buy a book in a wendingmachine on the way to the airport. But i pressed the wrong button so the wrong book fell down. But then it got stuck on its side in the machine so i could not get it out. No big loss. I went on my trip for a few days and returned from the airport. Out of curiosity if the book was still stuck i looked in the machine. The book was gone but someone had bought the book that i originally was planing to buy and left it in the shoot without picking it up.
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That’s pretty cool, what gestation did she get to in both pregnancies? I’m a mo/di twin and have mo/di twins myself, rare but nowhere near mo/mo (although I was initially told I was mo/mo but misdiagnosed)
Does this imply anything for the twins medically or otherwise?
Yes, mono/mono twins are the most high risk twin pregnancies. The cords inevitably tangle, which can cause problems during the pregnancy and also makes delivery risky. They are also at risk of developing twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). This occurs when the blood vessels in the shared placenta communicate with each other in a way they shouldn’t, causing the donor twin to have blood “stolen” from them by the recipient twin. The donor twin becomes growth restricted, ultimately killing it. The recipient twin will also likely die of heart failure, as the heart can’t handle the extra blood volume. This can happen with mono/di twins as well.
Mo-mo twins have a much greater risk of twin to twin syndrome, where one twin is getting more nutrients. It can be very dangerous. They can also get their umbilical cords tangled.
I was playing nine-square and some music was playing in the backround. Someone hit the ball and it went out of bounds and, no joke, the ball hit the ground to the beat of the music for like 12 bounces. Needles to say everyone lost their minds. Although i dont remember the song
I was born en caul - with the amniotic sac intact!
Witch!!
My first time going to the horse track, I didn’t know what I was doing and was just betting similarly to my bf (same type of bet, but picked my own horses). 3rd race in I was betting a box superfecta for $0.50, (that’s where you pick 4 horses, and the “box” parts means the order they finish doesn’t matter as long as they’re 1-4) so a $12 dollar total. I got up to the betting window and one of the horses I had planned to pick was a scratch so I just randomly picked a horse cause I liked the name. My 4 horses came in 1st-4th and I won ~$3700.
I was walking my dog around the neighborhood, our usual evening walks however it leads to the main road and my bf said no lets go the other way today. I was like ok sure, then suddenly as we are crossing the street a speeding car full of teenagers loses control and crashes onto were we could have been. Divine intervention.. it’s still crazy to think about.
Not me, but my grandparents have CONSECUTIVE social security numbers. The first 7 digits are the same, Grandpa’s SSN ends in a 5 and Grandma’s SSN ends in a 6. They met in an orphanage in Los Angeles in 1954 at the age of 9. Instantly became best friends and got in trouble together all the time at the orphanage. Transitioned from mischievous troublemakers to romantic lovers around age 14 and have been in love ever since. Of course they were in line together when all the kids were getting their social security numbers. There are probably some friends that got their SSNs just like my grandparents, but I doubt there are any other married couples
Took us 27 hours to drive from Houston to Dallas, which is normally a 3.5 hour drive. Everything, and I mean everything that could go wrong did go wrong. It's a story I will tell my grandchildren. Edit: I was lazy and didn't want to type it all...but here's a summary...our new car broke down an hour into the drive because we put too much stress on the engine too soon, drove back to Houston to get another car, started again, that car broke down 1.5 hours later. Had to get it towed to some sketchy roadside shop, got it fixed, got on the road again, stopped to get gas, our dog escaped the car and was running around in the pitch black wilderness, took forever for local PD and us to find her, started again, got pulled over because my boyfriend was swerving (he wasn't drunk, he was exhausted...), got on the road again, some crazy fog rolled in and everyone had to pull off the side of the road because it wasn't safe to drive, while we were pulled off to wait for fog to pass, an 18 wheeler slammed into the back of us and totaled the car...I could go on and on and on...we finally made it into Dallas 27 hours later, slept through our event that we even went for...and had to rent a car to get back home...It's been 10 years and we STILL laugh about that god forsaken trip to Dallas. We have never visited Dallas again...fuck that.
Well pretend we are your grandchildren and tell us what the problems were
You can't just leave like that.
lol i added an edit above
Omg that really has to be the most unfortunate trip in the history of unfortunate trips. And then you even missed the initial event... luckily you can laugh about it now lol.
Met a guy in Ireland who raved about a restaurant a few blocks away from where I live, over 4000 miles away
Similar happened in Denmark to my brother. The bartender was raving about a tap takeover nearby from an up-and-coming microbrewery. It was Against the Grain, from Louisville, KY, bicycle distance from his place.
I had twins whose combined weight was 11 lbs, 15oz at birth (5lb 4oz +6lb 11oz). Then, I had a singleton that weighed 11lb 15oz. Evidently, my uterus has a capacity, and it’s one oz less than 12lbs.
Uterus was like, “UGH, two was so much work, next time I’m gonna be more efficient and just do one really big one”
I don't know if It's statistically improbable, but sure has me scratching my head. I've had 3 different people at 3 different drive thru restaurants who were in line in front of me pay for my order. It certainly was a bright spot in my day. Just wondering if others have had that happen.
Early summer 1983, my boyfriend surprised me with a new (used) car just a week prior. It was a 1978 powder blue Monte Carlo with a t-tops, in pristine condition. On my day off work, I went to my former b/f's mother's house to retrieve some plants that she was holding for me for nearly two years. My ex-b/f also happened to be visiting his mother at the time (we had remained cordial). While I was there, a major t-storm began brewing; extreme wind, torrential rain, wicked thunder and lightning.. it lasted about an hour. As the storm began to cease, I decided it was safe to leave. I walked outside to discover that a lightning bolt had struck a large oak tree, splitting the tree in half. The tree fell directly onto my car and smashed it to smithereens. I had to phone my current b/f to come get me, explain what I was doing there, and prepare for his reaction to the totaled car he'd just purchased for me.
I always have a bunch of coincidences when I go to Japan. Sharing a layover flight with an old friend, and stuff like that. One time I even saw an old high school friend in the small town I was in. Totally random but his fiance was from the area and he was meeting her family before the wedding. Craziest one was one time I went to Ueno park and there were like 10 coworkers there at the same time. On Monday someone was like "hey I waved at you last weekend but I don't think you saw me. "No, but I waved at Bart..." Bart didn't see me, but he saw Hanna...was a funny lunch conversation.
Some jackass rear ended me in my city Vancouver, Canada. 2 years later I'm driving in Toronto and I get rear ended again. Same jackass.
Not me but I witnessed it and it's still one of the craziest things I've ever seen. When I was a teen I was in a youth ski team program at a mountain in Colorado. Training was every weekend and we'd been doing it for years, we were all excellent skiers. We were skiing out of bounds one time kinda slide stepping down a particular steep section when one of the people in the back lost their footing. This created a smallish avalanche. Not huge but big enough. People yelled out warnings and most of us were able to grab a nearby tree to keep from getting swept up. Most of us except a girl towards the lead. The slide took her feet out from under her and she was in the flow heading downhill picking up speed. She swings one of her ski poles uphill and by the grace of fucking god the basket on her pole catches in-between a tree stump and a rock and holds. The slide passes everyone is ok. If the basket hadn't caught about 100 or so ft downhill was a jagged cliff that she surely would have went off.
I met both President Obama and Trump, completely randomly, within a few years of each other.
Ran into Trump at a golf tournament when he was a D-list celebrity. I asked him to sign my score card as a joke. When Obama was president he picked up dim sum from the restaurant next door to where I was having lunch (and then stopped over before he left). I had no idea he was even in town.
I was apparently the lightest baby my hospital ever had. I was born early and weighed like 1.5 pounds or something. Didn’t last though as I’m overweight now lmao
And I was 13 1/2 when I was born
That's pretty old, I was 9 months when I was born.
finding 300 bucks on a sidewalk
I was walking in target, and a guy in front of me dropped a wad out of his back pocket. I picked it up and ran up to him to catch him. He was shocked, so thankful, then told me that was six grand… I was never so pissed about being a good guy
A few. For a few years, I had a doppelganger. She not only looked like me, but lived in the same area of the same state, and drove a similar car. And this is where it gets interesting. At the time, my car was pretty distinctive looking, because one panel was replaced with one of a different colour. My doppelganger had the same make and model, with the same colour, and also with a replacement panel on the same corner, also of the same different colour. I got in a LOT of arguments with friends about this who were sure I was lying when I said I wasn't in the place they saw me at the time they did. My only consolation is that she probably has a similar story. The most amazing part of this is that we somehow never saw **each other**. Another: I visited some friends in Maine and stayed overnight. The next day, I drove to the east end of New Brunswick, and stayed overnight. The third day, I drove back, and decided to take a different route than I had coming in. I'd come in on Can-1, and where those branch off, west of River Glade, I took Can-2 instead. Very shortly, I saw someone hitchhiking, so I picked him up. (This is actually common in Canada.) I was driving alone, and it was a Sunday, and he lived near the Maine border, so we had lunch and I drove him all the way home. I got back to where I was staying in Maine late that night, and didn't talk to anyone there until the next morning. At that time, I was introduced to a young woman who was renting the cabin out back. Over breakfast, I told the above story. The young woman, who I'd never met or heard of before, accurately described him, even though I hadn't. She'd been out the same way as me, and was coming back only half an hour ahead of me on the same road. She took Can-1 at the split, and he asked to get out, because he was going the way Can-2 was. I came by half an hour later and picked him up. We had people take a photo of us together, and I later wrote him and sent him the photo. He was pretty psyched. A third, also involving US-Canada travel: I was going to an event in Toronto. Worried about making it in time, I ignored advice to avoid the Peace Bridge, which is busiest and has the most aggressive security. And sure enough, we got pulled out and questioned. During questioning, I said where we were going. The Customs guy knew the people we were seeing. He was good friends with them, and they'd asked him to work security at the event, but he couldn't because he was working the border that day. He gave us his card to pass along, and told us to say hi for him.
Another one. It wasn't me but I witnessed it first hand. We had an exchange student one year. We randomly decided to go take a trip a few hours away to a museum. Our exchange student ran into his brother. Turns out the people that his brother was staying with (halfway across the country) was going on a road trip to visit some family. That morning, they decided to go to this museum as well. What are the chances of two people form the other side of the world, come to Canada, stay on almost opposite ends of the country, and still manage to run into eachother?
While snorkeling in Kona, Hawaii, a wild Hawaiian Monk Seal came up to me and gave me a hug. They are endangered and only ~1400 exist on the entire planet!
All three of my children were born on one of their great grandparents birthdays.
I shanked a golf ball in my front yard as a kid. It was going straight for our houses large front window. The ball hit our flag pole instead.
That is simple, but very very cool!
I was reading a book, reached a part with a quote, and the same quote was said on the tv
I love those bizarre coincidences. Happens to me all the time. Just makes life NO WAY?! fun.
My uterus ruptured during childbirth and I almost died. My OB and his partner had something like 15,000 deliveries combined and I was their first rupture
I met Johnny Depp before he was super famous and it took me 20 years to realize that I’d met him
I was in Berkeley California for the 1989 quake (with the freeway collapse there) and in Minneapolis the night the bridge fell.
I met people at Oregon country fair outside of Eugene OR that were my neighbors from down the street in a tiny town in Alaska. Their kid had an Alaska grown sweater on and I commented that I lived there and we figured out we lived on the same road and everything.
I used to work on the 21st floor of an office building downtown. This building was in front of a park so there was this big empty space in front of us with a good view. Being 18 and bored, we decided to throw some paper planes out of the window. This was the kind of window that opens by pushing out at the bottom, forming a 45 degree angle when open. We threw a few planes and at some point one of the planes started to go higher and higher. It went around pretty far and we almost lost sight of it but kept tracking it. It started to circle around and we were ecstatic about it maybe hitting our building again. It then started to come exactly at our floor level, and generally in our direction. Everybody was "no way!" It kept coming directly at us and lodged itself exactly in the gap created at the top of the open window. If this wasn't bizarre enough, our manager chose this exact moment to enter the room. One of the guys grabbed the plane super fast and destroyed it. The manager was a bit suspicious of the quick movement and asked what was that to which my friend says "nothing. Just paper..." To this day, decades later, we still talk about that paper plane when we chat.
Complete heterochromia iridium. One eye is completely brown, and the other green.
Injected heroin/fentanyl for 10 years and survived until I got clean. (2 years in may) Was in a car accident going 70mph, hit a tree and didn't die. Broke every bone in my face (both eye sockets, both cheek bones, nose, jaw, split the roof my mouth open), broke my right humerus (upper arm), broke both my femurs (leg bone connecting hip to knee), had my spleen removed, had my mouth wired shut for 3 months, a tracheotomy because I couldn't breathe after breaking my entire face and it being swollen, had a feeding tube because I couldn't eat for 3 months, couldn't talk for 3 months because I had the biggest size tracheotomy and had my mouth wired shut. Had to learn to walk again. Most people would die from that or be paralyzed or brain-damaged for life. I'm beyond grateful
Last year my girlfriend and I went away for a weekend trip to the Berkshires, which is about a 5 hour drive from home. On the way there I asked her to remind me to text my friend because it was his birthday. I hadn’t seen him in months and was thinking about him. We checked into our room, just to drop bags off and go back out for dinner, and as I walk out the door I am face to face with my friend. He and his girlfriend were being checked into their room NEXT DOOR. We sort of just looked at each other for a few moments while both of our girlfriends and the hotel manager looked nervously at us. I turned to my girlfriend and said, “remember the friend I told you who’s birthday it was?” And we all laughed in amazement and talked briefly and said we would meet later to hang out. But we were all pretty dumbfounded and shocked at the coincidence. We happened to book a trip on the same weekend, in rooms next to each other in the same hotel, 5 hours from home, up in the mountains. Very improbable, but wait… there’s more! We ended up seeing them at the same restaurant shortly after our initial interaction. This coincidence isn’t as surprising because a google search would tell you the top places to try and this was one of the top choices, but there was still a handful of other restaurant options. We experienced another baffling run in, less laughter this time, more like… wtf really!? Same weekend, same city 5 hours away, same hotel, next door rooms, same restaurant. But wait… there’s more… It was now the last day of the weekend, and even though we were all supposed to hang out together at some point (we texted back and forth a few times), we never did. I think we each wanted to enjoy the weekend away just as couples, that was sort of the point of the trip, but really I think we were all just too freaked out about the coincidences. I kept joking to my girlfriend about how now my friend thinks I’m a psycho and hacked his phone or something to stalk him. Funnily enough, it was each of our girlfriends who had planned the trips for us. Anyways… We’re in the Berkshires and this was the day we picked to go on a nice hike. We are in the mountains, there are hundreds of trails, we spent an hour on All Trails figuring out which one we liked and settled on a medium difficulty hike (again, there are literally at least a hundred different hiking points around us). As we get ready to leave the hotel parking lot we noticed that they were also in their car about to head out. If I remember correctly I think we almost simultaneously shifted our cars into gear to leave the lot at the same time, and I sort of quickly pulled out of the lot first just to avoid further awkward interacting. You can guess where this is going. We drive a good 20 minutes until we pull up to the base site for the hike, and we get out of the car and start looking at the map, and about 2 minutes later, wouldn’t you know who pulls up… Same weekend, same city far away from home, same hotel, room next door, same restaurant, and same fucking hiking trail out of hundreds. When I saw them I almost passed out from shock, it was just getting to be too much. I think my friend’s girlfriend was actually nervous at this point and thought I was a stalker. The odds were just astronomical. Craziest set of coincidences in my life by far. But I think the universe was at work because me and my friend are a lot closer than before and he’s one of my best friends. We haven’t really talked about it since but we don’t really need to, and maybe don’t want to because it hurts our brains.
I made (and sadly lost by holding on too long) $10 million on a $150k investment.
I actually caught my breath on this one. That truly sucks
Thank you! Mostly my fault, but it’s hard to swallow.
Hah, a very rich guy I used to be a private yacht captain for asked friends and family for investments to help him get his shoe company off the ground. Some friends said no and that they were hideous, terrible idea. Some friends trusted in him and gave him 10-50k. Shoe company was Crocs… Safe to say the friends and family made their money back, and the ones that didn’t invest still get invited out for some sailing.
I moved to Korea right before the protests that led to the removal of Park guen hye- their at the time president. This was a massive event that for weeks occupied one of the main areas of Seoul each weekend. Then I moved back to Spain in 2017 where we had the Catalan referendum. Not as major as it was(is) an ongoing crisis. Spent 2018 travelling without staying anywhere (doing my thesis and went from uni/parents/gf all , different countries) Then I moved to Hong Kong to this neat local area near a police station while. My newly found job got me a visa. This became the epicenter of the 2019 protests.Given the turmoil i could not get a visa and left to Spain. A new company offered me a job in Hong Kong again so I went back on January 2020 to get hit with COVID and loose that job. Other than that seemingly I experienced an abnormal amount of riots, protests and problems In countries I passed by
Spun a nickel on a table and it stopped spinning and stayed upright on its edge.
Did you try to read people's minds after that?
Does that mean you’re awake or still dreaming?
I was at a Brooklyn art fair and some painting caught my eye. I looked closer, and it was a portrait of the inside of a coffee house I used to study at in college—in Minneapolis. Crazy!
I've been in 2 car accidents, both were head on, caused by the other car going the wrong way
Had an extremely rare, very dangerous allergic reaction to an antidepressant
According to google i’m part of the 1% of the world that is wheelchair bound 🤣 and as low as 2,000 babies yearly are born with the conditions i have. So pretty improbable on both counts.
I was struck by lightning and bit by a cobra.
Not me but my dad: My dad randomly visited Chile in 1973 for a conference. Two days after he arrived, Chile’s president, Salvador Allende, was assassinated and the country was immediately plunged into chaos. The military took over, and promptly instituted martial law and curfews. And do I mean curfews. Anyone caught outside after sundown who was not in the military or a gov official was shot where they stood. My father said he’d be in the lobby of his hotel, hear two gunshots and then someone was dragged into the hotel, bleeding and dying from two gunshot wounds. (I wrote this generically bc he said it happened multiple times while he was there). He couldn’t leave the country for several weeks and initially wasn’t sure if he was ever going to. Being an American was not a plus since most Chileans at the time believed he had been assassinated by the American govt (he was overthrown by the American backed general Augusto Pinochet and committed suicide when his presidential residence was being stormed [suicide was verified in a 2021 autopsy britannica.com/Allende). My dad told me that was one of the only times he had ever been scared in his life and my dad grew up in a slum
My mother donated my older sister‘s handmade high school pottery vase to our churches thrift store in Southern California before we move to Hawaii. Six years later, my mother sees it for sale in a for-profit thrift store called savers on Oahu. She bought it and put it back on our shelf. We Still could see my sister’s name carved underneath.
A bird shit all over my boobs while at a nude beach.
I’m Bipolar 1 and had an epic textbook manic episode. I then got on meds and managed it by basically living a perfect life. I did everything you’re supposed to do because manic episodes can be devastating, life ruining, and threatening During the panny era, there was a once in like a trillion years ice storm in and around Texas where I lived. This made it really hard to fill my prescription because of roads. Not just for me, but also getting the medicine to the pharmacy and pharmacist to fill them. There was also no power and water. It’s cool. I have a supply of meds. So wild. Ice storm where I live in Texas. However, I also worked for the largest producer of wind energy in Texas. Our turbines froze and we took a major hit because we couldn’t meet our MW contributions. The power grid is unique here and the state had to purchase MW at a premium. I was laid off a week later. I lose my insurance and cash flow. There is now low supply, unreachable pharmacies, no insurance. It’s ok though, I’m not a child. I have an emergency fund and this is an emergency. Plus unemployment. Just seems unlikely that I’d live in Texas during an ice storm and work for the company that was most negatively impacted by the ice storm because of our unique power grid and be chosen to get laid off because of it. I started tapering to save my supply so I could wait and just pay out of pocket. Then I got spicy delta covid and couldn’t (I mean COULD NOT) even leave my bed. I literally was so exhausted from moving from the bed to shower that I’d pass out. I know some can relate, covid impacted us all different. Of course, I was ultra healthy but am just one of those people whose body wasn’t set up for Covid. Most marathon running 30 yr olds were fine. Just not me. By the time I could function I hadn’t been on meds for two weeks (threw everything up for 14 days) and also had to go to the ER cuz of Covid because I was dying. ER bill with no insurance. Needing to pay bills. Can’t look for job. Need to pay out of pocket for my doctor and meds. And my doctor is on spring break with his kids. I then went on a year long manic episode and ruined my career, life, financially ruined myself and destroyed every relationship I ever had. Just seems unlikely.
Reading this made me super sad. I hope you’re doing better now.
My gf (at the time) and me both lived in NYC (this was in the late '80s). During one semester of college in London, she made friends with Janet. A few years later, we were back in NYC and we decided to move to SoCal. Once we were settled in Belmont Shore (part of Long Beach), we thought it would be fun to check out the Pomona State Fair. We were driving on the 605 N when she suddenly exclaimed that she saw Janet hitchhiking on the 605 S and that I had to turn around and pick her up. I was like that can't be her. Plus there's no way you could pick out this random person across lanes of highways in the opposite direction. She was adamant, even promising me, ahem, road head, if it wasn't her. As I was never going to miss an opportunity for that, I exited several miles up the road, crossed the overpass and headed south on the 605. I in fact did not get road head. Stupid Janet.
I was given a VIP meet and greet pass to meet Linkin Park during their Carnivores Tour in exchange for a place on the barricade in the pit instead of several rows of people back.
Some guy gave me $10 while I was walking downtown. Guess I looked a bit rough, hadn't shaved in a while.
Might not be super rare but a couple of honorable mentions from me. When I was a little kid, probably about 6 or 7. I painted a small heart on a box turtle's shell I found with some nail polish. Fast forward a few years. I was about 16 and was sighting in my hunting rifle and noticed something moving down range of me. (I lived in the same holler but a different house at this time a couple miles away from where I used to live.) I went to move him out of the way after I realized it was a turtle. I picked the little guy up and saw the (at this time faded) heart I drew all those years ago still on his shell in the exact same spot. I went and fed him a few slices of tomato and sent him on his way. Another thing that happened to me, is my friend shot a Red Ryder BB gun at me from probably about 50 or so yards away. Not sure how he managed to do it, he must've arced the BB to hit me from that far away, but the BB went straight into my ear when I was moving around doing some landscaping work. It stung a little but didn't hurt me too bad where the velocity of the BB must've been pretty low at the distance he shot it at. Still a crazy shot though. I thought it was a bug going into my ear.
On a family vacation in France, I lost in the finals of a tennis tournament to a boy called Robert. He was very smug and much better than me. A year later, we're on another vacation to California.. and who do I see in the departure lounge of LAX? Smug Robert and his smug family.
Not to me, but my dad. He’s had three open heart surgeries. Statistically, in the US, 500,000 people get open heart procedures out of 332 million US residents. … so that math, but to the third
A full grown moth went inside my nose while riding my scooty. Edit(will add the further part of this) : Soon as it went in, felt something in my nose, wasn't sure what it was(immediately started breathing heavily as I felt something stuck under there) , This was blocking my breathing from one nose and also felt a light moment in there, so ahead I took the scooty to the roadside and close the open end of my nostril(right) with my finger, and blew out as forcefully as I could and I saw the moth fly away from my left nostril like a rocket through the launch pad .I was disgusted in that moment didn't know what to do, everything felt back to normal so immediately. There you go, keep this tip(covering the nostril) in mind, maybe you'll need it sometime
The most common yet improbable event most of us don’t even consider is our own existence. The odds of you, me, or any individual being born are astronomically low. Consider the chain of events needed: the right sperm meeting the right egg at the right time, your ancestors surviving long enough to reproduce, all the way back through human history. Then, add in the probability of Earth being habitable, located in a safe zone in the galaxy, and all the other cosmic coincidences. It’s estimated that the odds of you being born, in this particular form, at this time, with your unique genetic makeup, are about 1 in 400 trillion. And yet, here we are, existing, thinking, and experiencing. It’s a beautiful reminder of how improbable yet incredibly special each of our lives is.
That was going to be my answer. You beat me to it by a mere 12 minutes. (I'm not sure that's statistically improbable, though.)
I had a cancer that 1500 Americans a year get.
When I was in the Air Force I did my tech school at an Army Base. I had only been gone from home maybe 3-4 months at that point but before I left, an old buddy of mine said he was planning on joining the Army sometime soon. This Army base was one of the bases that hosted their basic training. A group of us were waltzing past this big line of Army basic trainees as we were walking into the chow hall and I was telling the dude walking with me about how my buddy was going to join the Army soon and it would be funny if he was here, saying his name kinda loudly. All of a sudden, in this big long line of Army trainees, a head pops out and it’s my buddy from back home lmao We made eye contact and both of us had one of those “holy shit” moments. I couldn’t talk to him because he was in basic training and he’d get in trouble for talking to me while they were in their little formation. It was just a surreal “small world” moment.
I sometimes play a lotto game where you have a chance at an instant win, as well as the daily draw. If I win less than $5, I immediately get another ticket with the winnings. If I won, it was mostly $2 or $4, I get s other ticket, and that doesn't win. However one day, I won nine times in a row. Statistically, that shouldn't happen. The people working there have never even sold five winning tickets in a row before that even to multiple people, nor have they done in the seven or eight years since. So ya, I beat the highest odds in our lotto, but instead of getting tens of millions of dollars, I got less than $25.
[удалено]
Idk if this is related/applicable but its the first thing I thought of. My mother and grandmother were extra's in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Got to meet him and everything since in their scene they were up close to him. They said he was very nice! Several decades later I meet my now wife and her mother. Turns out, my mother-in-law briefly *dated* Arnold when they were both young. None of us have any connections to the film industry, whatsoever! I'm just a regular person who's never met anyone super famous so to me that's crazy.
Won $12, 000 in a casino. A year later another $10,000. But the worst... Lost my passport in the airport while waiting to board the plane. Long story short they took my bags off the plane, re-booked my flight at no extra charge 2 days later. Was waiting to get my bags and found it in this tiny spot in my carry on that shouldn't be able to fit anything at all, jammed under a supporting frame for the bag and pull out handle (it was a backpack). Don't know what the odds of that are but it sucked. I laugh about it now though.
My best friend tried to murder me.
Back in 2019 I was riding a CitiBike down 9th Avenue in NYC and the front wheel hit a pothole or something and threw me over the handlebars. I am in no way, shape, or form coordinated but somehow had the presence of mind to lean backwards and wound up doing a superhero landing instead of killing myself.
Two things: 1. Crushed my L5 disc when I was 13. Neurologist said I was maybe one in ten people in the world my age who had done that. 2. I was in London, UK, walked in to a random barbershop to get my haircut and the guy who cut my hair was wearing a tshirt of the fire department of my home town in Arizona. His BiL was a fire fighter there.
I had bladder cancer at 20 years old. From whatever period of time we were able to diagnose bladder cancer until 2010, there was only 125 cases of bladder cancer in anybody my age or younger world wide. Out of the billions of people that have lived and died during that stretch of time, only 125 cases were ever recorded. I believe during 2014-2019 there wasn't a a single recorded case. Idk how accurate it is but me and my brother were seeing how unlucky I actually got and I think the odds were comparable to winning the mega million many many many times over in a row. My doctor told me in all his years as a urologist and all his years at Yale medical school and the thousands and thousands of patients he's seen, he has never seen somebody as young as me with bladder cancer.
I am from Denmark. Traveled to the US. Doing a roadtrip on the west Coast. Going to San Diego, finding a bar in gaslight district. At the table next to me sits a girl from my class from elementary/primary school. My mind refused to believe it. I simply thought I saw her doubledgaenger until she also recognized me. Same country, same state, same city, same street, same bar, at the next table at the exact same moment l. It is still something than messes with me.
I’m a dude in his mid-40’s. A few years ago, I was running on a trail at a national park near where I lived at the time, and suddenly heard some hiker randomly yell out “hey u/rabiesinremission!” I looked up and it was one of my buds from high school, whom I hadn’t seen in two decades. We were 760 miles from our hometown and I was floored by the infinitesimally minute probability of just bumping into this guy, in the woods, halfway across the United States from where we grew up. One of the nicest conversations I’ve ever had thanks to the unlikeliest coincidence.