The world is a really cool and often strange place. We meet all kinds of people and have different experiences. So many people take different paths. Why would these paths ever collide again, right? It makes sense, at least on paper.
A coincidence is defined as a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.
That means a bunch of little things had to fall in place for a coincidence to happen, which shouldn't be a surprise because life is often all about timing.
That'll be on your mind when you read the following entries.
People shared their thoughts with us after Redditor RichCauliflour asked the online community,
"Hey Reddit, what's the strangest coincidence you've ever personally experienced?"
"My dad..."
"My dad and his twin live far apart. Without even knowing it, they both bought, in the same week, the same car in the same colour."
Garaquarubyline
They're telepathic, aren't they? We love to see it.
"Lost my wallet..."
"Lost my wallet on a trip to Chicago. Found a wallet under the night stand in the hotel. It was not my wallet but belonged to someone who lived two blocks from me in DC."
voice_of_craisin
Hopefully you did a good deed and returned it once you got back!
"Here in my little town..."
"Here in my little town in northwest England there's a good kebab shop from which the lads and I have ordered for years. We've been in there after countless nights out and had them deliver to our doors, so we know the guys who work there pretty well. They're mostly Turkish."
"Once a few of us got together for a short break in Turkey. Having got off the plane, we waited in the car park outside for another pal who'd been on a different flight. As we stood, soaking in the ambience of a new country, none other than the tall guy from our local kebab shop walked across the road right in front of us, two thousand miles from home."
"That was weird."
Superbead
Plot twist: He was an undercover Turkish agent who was also good at kebabing.
"In 1999..."
"In 1999, took my girlfriend to Disney World for a graduation present. While at Epcot, we sat outside and ate while talking about the band I had previously been in. Just then, the guitarist walked up and said 'Hey!'"
codallas
This is so cool! Hopefully you all hung out right then. We are overdue for a cool buddy comedy.
"Seeing Paul McCartney..."
"Seeing Paul McCartney (The Beatles) on TV in 2001, and noticing he was tall. Next day I'm walking down a very quiet street, and walking towards me is a really tall guy, and it was Paul Mcartney. He must've seen my expression so he veered my way, stuck his hand out and said "Hi mate." I was shocked. 18 years later I'm still shocked lol."
[deleted]
What an experience! Apparently he's quite friendly like that.
"I drove 600 miles..."
"I drove 600 miles with my brother and a friend to climb a very remote mountain in the desert."
"None of us were mountain climbers, so this was not a normal thing for us, but we decided to give it a shot. We get there and after climbing a few hundred feet, I look back and notice someone coming up below us."
"I suggest we take a breather and wait for the newcomer and say hi."
"He gets within earshot after about 20 minutes and we start talking while he pauses to rest below us. Turns out we are from the same state (Texas), and both drove almost the same distance to the site."
"He asks where about in the state we live, and it turns out he knows the town."
"He asks if we know a certain family in that town. I point to the friend who came along with me and say, 'Here’s one of them!' ”
"It ends up this guy dated our friend’s older sister several years before that."
"When he finally climbs up the rest of the way we all recognize him! My brother had actually met the guy when he was dating our friend’s sister, but hadn’t seen him since."
"We all made the rest of the climb on this remote mountain almost a thousand miles from home together."
- Onomatopoeia_Utopia
This is a charming story—the world is so much smaller than we think!
"I started a new chapter..."
"I was sitting at the Raleigh-Durham Airport, waiting for my flight to Newark, NJ."
"I started a new chapter in the book I was reading; and it was about someone taking the flight from Raleigh-Durham to Newark."
"The book hadn't been about air travel or either of those locales up until that point, but about Astral projection."
"Definitely one of those moments that makes me think the universe has a sense of humor."
le4t
Indeed it does. We might as well roll with it, don't you agree? It's not like we have a choice.
"I used to get..."
"I used to get two buses home from work. I got off the first one having left my phone and keys on the front seat of the bus without realising. Got on the second bus, went to my favoured front seat and my possessions that I didn’t know were missing were waiting for me. The bus had changed driver and route. Still freaks my nut out to this day."
[deleted]
You really lucked out. This could have ended badly!
"On the way there..."
"I was in St. Augustine on vacation. On the way there I just happened to think about this girl I knew back in college in Orlando. Just sorta wondered what she was up to and the like. Sure as s**t I ran into her in a bar there the first night. She was there celebrating graduating from PA school."
Col_Water
And you got together, right? Or is this something we only hear about in romatic comedies?
Life can be very strange, don't you agree? There's nothing like a seemingly out-of-this-world coincidence to make you feel that the world isn't such a big place after all.
Have some stories of your own? Tell us more in the comments below!
The world is not so big a place, is it?
While we like to think of ourselves as isolated in this billion plus planet, there can be a lot more crossover than we think. We call these instances coincidences, hoping to find the right word to explain what happens when a one-in-a-million chance occurs.
If there's over seven billion plus people in the world, turns out you can run into these 'coincidences' more often than you think.
Reddit user, Ok_Ambassador886, wanted to know how the fates aligned perfectly when they asked:
"What's the most unbelievable coincidence you've ever had?"
The unique thing about a coincidental happening is how fast it springs up on you. You won't see it coming, you won't even be thinking about it, so when it does happen, the surprise of it is enough to make you slap your forehead and go, "Whoa!"
Great Minds?
"My dad and his twin live far apart. Without even knowing it, they both bought, in the same week, the same car in the same colour."
Garaquarubyline
"I’m a twin. The coincidences on what we do, miles apart but almost simultaneously, are too strange to explain. Science underestimates how much of what we are and do is hardwired genetically."
DomingoLee
So Close...
"Lost my wallet on a trip to Chicago. Found a wallet under the night stand in the hotel. It was not my wallet but belonged to someone who lived two blocks from me in DC."
voice_of_craisin
That's How You Know You Got A Bro 4 Lyfe
"Not a big deal but we always laugh about it. I was hanging out with a buddy and I was dropping him off at his house. As he gets out of the car I start to drive off, but I stop, roll down the window and shout him over and say hey man, I have this overwhelming urge to ask you if you want a piece of gum. He burst out laughing and said get the f-ck out bro, I literally was just thinking to myself that I would kill for a piece of gum. Needless to say we're heterosexual life mates"
Idontdanceforfun
"That’s a quality bromance right there"
LordSevolox
As stated earlier, there are more than seven billion people on this planet. The odds of running into one specific person whom you have not seen in years is so high I'm not even going to try and compute it for this because it turns out to find someone you haven't seen in a long time is just go to Disney.
Not You. You.
"Was walking around Boston on vacation (I’m from DC) and thought I saw a guy who I interned with ten years before. He was from California and I had not seen him for 10 years. There was no reason he would be Boston but I thought it was him and then when he got closer I noticed it was not him. I even said to my wife hey there’s a guy i interned with, but was mistaken. About 15 minutes later we were walking on a new block and the actual guy I interned with was sitting on a bench waiting for his girlfriend to get done shopping. Unbelievable."
PropBrother227
No, Not You. The Guy Who Looks Exactly Like You.
"Went to high school on the east coast, moved to Southern California years later. One day I’m at Disneyland with the family watching a show and I see a guy sitting about 5 feet away who has to be a guy I knew in high school so I call out to him and yup it’s him. 6 months later I’m at the airport for a red eye flight and I spot him again eating at a restaurant so I say to him “how do I keep running into you?” He looks at me surprised and I realize it isn’t him, but it is his twin brother who I also knew from high school."
Global-Philosophy-11
Maybe The Answer To All These Is Disney
"In 1999, took my girlfriend to Disney World for a graduation present. While at Epcot, we sat outside and ate while talking about the band I had previously been in. Just then, the guitarist walked up and said 'Hey!'"
codallas
Surprise or not, there's nothing more warming to the heart than having a coincidence bring to mind that maybe, in this crazy, mixed up world, you're not alone.
Similar Tastes Carry Far
"I had an old Jeep (that had a very specific window vinyl that I had put on the back window) that I ended up trading in at the Ford dealership in my town. My mom lived by the dealership and watched as it was loaded up and taken away several days later with some other vehicles. Months go by and I drive past a house I had lived in years before, and there sat my old Jeep, vinyl decal still on the back window."
"Now what are the chances that the random person that happened to live in my old house would also wind up with my old vehicle. Blew my mind."
BestKept_Secret
Saved A Few Dollarydoos
"I was driving with an old fully loaded trailer long distance, not quite middle of nowhere but fairly rural, not much around etc."
"Trailer gets a flat tyre. I had no spare. The exact spot where I pull over happens to have around 3 or 4 tyres of various sizes just sitting behind some small bushes."
"I find one that matches perfectly to my flat tyre, which also happens to be the only one of them that’s inflated."
"I swap the tyre and continue driving, thinking what the hell just happened. I still can’t believe it happened."
Beginshere
What A Wonderfully Awful Surprise
"Mom and dad divorced when I was very young. There was no contact what so ever. I was around 10yo when we visited an aunt outside of our city. On the way back to the train station we got kinda lost. It was getting late and mobile phones was not a thing back then. A boy standing at the same bus stop apparently saw my mom panicking and offered to come with him to his parents and his stepdad would bring us to the train station."
"You cannot imagine the shock when we found out that it was actually my dads home. I was to young to fully understand but was happy seeing my dad after so many years. My mom was in shock and almost fainted. I mean if all places"
Ladyvenoms
A Bittersweet Reunion
"It was my first night at a homeless shelter. With nowhere left to go I reserved myself a bed there, and after I was registered and shown around I went to the living room and settled down a bit."
"As I was sitting there, for some reason a close friend of mine came to mind. Let's call him Darryl."
"Darryl and I hadn't seen each other for a while by then, while before I became homeless we would frequently hang out. I figured he must be wondering how I was doing, and why he hadn't heard from me in a while."
"And just when I decided to give him a call the next day, guess who came walking in! Yep, Darryl had arrived at the shelter as well. It took a while before he noticed me, but when he did, naturally we sat next to each other to catch up."
"It was a bittersweet reunion for the both of us. We were happy to see each other, but sad about the circumstances we were in. We both wanted the best for each other, instead we got the worst."
"I'm glad that neither of us had to face the homeless life alone though. I'm glad we found each other and that we were able to support one another. Both of us made it out of there within a couple of months. I now have a cosy apartment with very lovely neighbors. He moved in on a boat and lives in peace and quiet, like he always wanted."
"The end."
Confident_Ad_3573
Home Is Where The Mail Is
"I deployed to Afghanistan and was chatting with the guy I was replacing during some down time. I recognized his name, but it looked like our paths had never crossed."
"We had been stationed at some of the same bases, so I asked him where he had lived."
" 'Base housing' is a pretty common answer, so I asked him what street. He'd lived on my street!"
" 'Which house? Did you know (old neighbor)?' Turns out we had lived in the same house, and I realized why his name was familiar: I had forwarded his Christmas cards that were sent to his old address a year earlier!"
- daytonbob
June 18th
"We went on a family trip to Liberty island to see the Statue of Liberty and had a scheduled time to go to see lady Liberty."
"We got there early and we didn’t know that Ellis Island was included in our ticket (we got our tickets from park service not some second hand group). We figured hey we have time let’s go to Ellis Island as well."
"We got in and went around and we got to the archive and saw we could search all the manifests for every ship that had come in. I called my mom because she had told me my great grand father had come over through Ellis Island."
"She never met he had died when my grandmother was a young child and that is another story on it’s own, worthy of a movie almost."
"She gave me his name I searched and found his paperwork."
"He arrived on June 18th 1920…..we visited on June 18th 2018."
- Long_Fish1973
It's The Climb
"I drove 600 miles with my brother and a friend to climb a very remote mountain in the desert."
"None of us were mountain climbers, so this was not a normal thing for us, but we decided to give it a shot. We get there and after climbing a few hundred feet, I look back and notice someone coming up below us."
"I suggest we take a breather and wait for the newcomer and say hi."
"He gets within earshot after about 20 minutes and we start talking while he pauses to rest below us. Turns out we are from the same state (Texas), and both drove almost the same distance to the site."
"He asks where about in the state we live, and it turns out he knows the town."
"He asks if we know a certain family in that town. I point to the friend who came along with me and say, 'Here’s one of them!' ”
"It ends up this guy dated our friend’s older sister several years before that."
"When he finally climbs up the rest of the way we all recognize him! My brother had actually met the guy when he was dating our friend’s sister, but hadn’t seen him since."
"We all made the rest of the climb on this remote mountain almost a thousand miles from home together."
- Onomatopoeia_Utopia
The Night Of The Accident
"In 2014, my wife and I were involved in a terrible car crash that resulted in the death of someone."
"I was driving us home one night, when a lady ran out in front of our vehicle. I’m still not sure how she made it past the car next to me but our car hit her on the passenger side front lights."
"At first, I thought I had popped a tire but when I looked back and saw her lying there, shock set in."
"I ran back to her as fast as I could but there was nothing I could do. It was just an awful situation and still feels very surreal as I am typing this."
"Later that night, we found out the lady had been a passenger in a car that had been rear-ended on the same road 20 minutes prior."
"According to her friends, she just walked off. Then in front of everyone, including responding police, she took off into the road."
"She crossed 3 busy lanes of east bound traffic, across the median and then made it into our middle lane heading westbound. Her friends said she had been feeling down lately but we never heard anything else."
"Fast forward 3 years and my wife and I are still living in our small cottage on the beach. We often took our dogs on late night walks and decided to go to the local gas station a few blocks from us."
"It had to be around 2 in the morning so there wasn’t many people out but as we got there, we heard a helicopter landing in the park across the street. A young lady had been in an accident and was getting help."
"As we watched, we mentioned to a guy next to us how we’d seen so many accidents in the years since we had moved to Florida from Michigan."
"He then goes:"
" 'Listen to this, my boss was once driving his truck down Gulf to Bay Blvd and rear ended a car by the local high school. He says, it was the craziest thing, one of the ladies got out of the car, said she had to go to the bathroom and walked into oncoming traffic.' "
"My wife and I were shocked, I said that was us. I was driving the car that hit her. At first it didn’t seem like he believed us but we ended up talking for a little while."
"Even though we never got many answers about why she took off, besides wanting to use the bathroom, it was somewhat therapeutic."
"I had trouble driving for a while after the accident, still do in certain situations but talking about it and writing like this does help."
"Another kind of strange coincidence, we recently watched Your Honor on Showtime. It centers around a kid that hit and kills a Mob Boss’s son."
"Although circumstances were different, I mentioned to my wife how watching the accident in the show was hard due to our experience."
"Then later in the episode you find out the accident takes place on October 9th - the same day as ours did."
- spartydownsouth1
The Universe Has A Sense Of Humor
"I was sitting at the Raleigh-Durham Airport, waiting for my flight to Newark, NJ."
"I started a new chapter in the book I was reading; and it was about someone taking the flight from Raleigh-Durham to Newark."
"The book hadn't been about air travel or either of those locales up until that point, but about Astral projection."
"Definitely one of those moments that makes me think the universe has a sense of humor."
- le4t
Wolfville
"I'm from Wisconsin. My wife and I were vacationing in Nova Scotia on a bus tour of Evangeline country."
"The bus broke down (when does that happen), just outside a little town called Wolfville. We decided to go for a short walk to kill time and saw a small cemetery. It was old and had a directory."
"My ancestor from the early 1700's was buried there. I am related to dozens of families in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. I had no idea."
- Current-Health2183
Noah
"About 5 or 6 years ago I was taking the NYC Subway when I sat next to a very nice elderly lady."
"We talked about how sh*tty and gross public transportation is, and after getting off on my stop she told me 'see ya later!' And I smiled knowing damn well I was probably never gonna see her again."
"I kid you not, about 6 months ago I was taking the L in Chicago, when a nice elderly lady sits next to me and says 'hey Noah how have you been?' ”
"Literally like half a decade later, this random old lady I met one time in New York found me again in Chicago, she somehow remembered me, and we had a nice conversation!"
"I Hope she’s doing well."
- ItsDocL
Keep your eyes open, because the long arm of coincidence might be out there coming for you some day.
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I was visiting family in LA and I randomly suggested we check out the places we went to when my older brother and I were younger.
One day, we decided to visit the house where I was born.
I have no memory of that house near East Los Angeles since we moved to another house when I was two. But we pulled up to the house and I got out of the car and looked around the front yard.
A guy emerged from the home and we locked eyes. I didn't say anything out of fear went back into the car where my family sat waiting. My mother, however, insisted I go back out and explain to the guy why we were there in order to avoid further suspicion.
The man understandably stared me down and I told him this was the house where I was born. His surly expression changed instantly and he insisted my family come inside and meet his mom and dad and tour their home.
Under different circumstances, I'm not sure if we would have experienced the same outcome. To me, this is my one-in-a-million story.
Curious to hear from strangers online, Redditor IcarusTheTaker asked:
"(Serious) What is your "1 In a Million" story?"
Connections
Interactions with strangers led to mind-blowing discoveries for these Redditors.
Family Secrets
"My dad died when I was 12. We had a favorite picture of him that my uncle made prints of and gave to us kids, and my two half-brothers, as well as other family members."
"Fast forward 15 years or so. My brother and his roommate are at a bar and pick up a couple of women and bring them back to their place. The women spend the night. The next morning, the woman that slept with my brother's roommate sees my dad picture on the mantle, turns white and says 'Who's that?'"
"That's my roommates dad. He passed away a while ago."
"Oh, thank God! I REALLY need to talk to him."
"That's how we found out we had a half-sister we never knew about."
"My dad got a girl pregnant in highschool and she decided to go it alone. She moved across the state and never contacted my dad other than to say it's a girl and what her name was."
"Our half sister never knew what dad's name was until word got to her mom that he had died. The mom contacted our mom and they had a conversation. My mom had known everything and had kept it to herself. My mom then had a copy of the photo sent."
"Half sister was visiting her friend, when they met up with my brother and roommate in a random bar in a random city."
"Family secrets, man."
Passengers
"My friend was on the tube (london) and was forced to get off at an earlier stop due to line works. He was relatively new to london and didnt know what to do so he got talking to a guy who sat opposite him and he was heading the same way and he welcomed my friend to come with him. They started making small talk and asked about where they were from originally. Turns out the guy was from the next town over from where he lived. The next part is where it really gets 1 in a million. When my friend said that he knew the town and told him where he was from, the guy is like 'no way, my grandma used to live there' The guys grandma lived next to my friend, and it turns out they used to play together when were around 5/6 years of age (they are both around 30 at this time). When they realised this they recognised eachother."
"If the train never had to stop they would have carried on their journeys and never known."
High School Buddy
"Went to New Orleans for Halloween a few years ago with a few friends. Ended up at the famous Cafe Du Monde for some Beignets. Was sitting at our table with my 4 travel friends, when I let out a loud laugh."
"Right behind me I hear someone say 'wtf, I know that laugh, that's gotta be whopper68!'. I turn around as he turns around. It's an old high school buddy that had just gotten off a plane on a last second trip decision to fly to New Orleans to meet his fiancé's parents before they flew back home."
"Hadn't seen em in 10+years."
Familiar Face
"I was on a motor vehicle collision call out as a volunteer fire fighter. There was freezing rain on the Trans Canada highway and around 30 cars in the ditch. I checked on one lady in a flat bed tow truck who looked distraught because she just wrecked her vehicle. After speaking with her she seemed okay and I went about my business."
"A couple of years later I was hanging out with friends and family around Christmas and my brother-in-law mentioned he had a flight attendant friend staying over on her day off. She seemed really familiar, and after a while I figured out that she was the lady in the vehicle I checked in on during the freezing rain accident! What are the chances?"
People Share The 'Dirty Secrets' That Their Bosses Don't Want Customers To Know
There's a lot businesses hope their customers believe, and there are many business practices you wouldn't dare believe. These are some of the secrets Reddit ...Odds
Luck of the draw? Right place and time? Who knows?
Dad's Luck
"Me and my dad were on a hike, in the middle of the woods. We brought out knives, for whittling. So, we are carving out sticks, and he accidentally cuts himself. Nothing too bad, but it was big enough that you can't ignore. Then he notices something under the rock he is sitting on. It is a box, with a multiple bandaids in it."
"Also whenever he is looking for a parking spot, he finds one, right in front of where he needs to go."
What Are The Odds
"I have a distant relative that was an author. I'm always trying to find the few books of hers that I don't have. I bought a copy of one off a used book seller via the internet several years ago. When it came it had an inscription inside the front cover from the author to my grandmother (I'm sure it's her, she had a very unique nickname). This book had come out of my grandmother's library and been around the country to come back to me!"
Small World
"I met a girl on a bus in Mexico traveling to Guadalajara. We sat next to each other and hit it off. She was only in Mexico for another couple of days but we exchanged numbers. We never ended up staying in contact but ran into each other 8 years later in Oklahoma City and found out that her family grew up with my best friend's family. Crazy stuff!"
The Dodge King
"So here is the shortened version, i was playing dodgeball and was the last one on my team, i had three people throw a ball at me at the same time, i walked forward with my arms out as if accepting the fact that I couldn't dodge it even if i tried, and then they all barely missed me, never happened again and when i play dodgeball with the same people everyone calls me the dodge king and wont attack me."
Free Car On Tinder
"I met a girl on tinder, she came over and we... Well anyway before she left she told me she'd like me to go to her house the next day so i said sure! The next day she gives me her address and its in a different state but i live relatively close so i head over and she tells me to park out front by the mail box, ok sure. I go inside and we start making tea and just as the water starts to boil i hear a CRASH... Her 89 year old neighbor totaled my car, a lil dinky '95 saturn, with her brand new mercedes. So now im stuck. In another state. With a girl ive known for, oh about 16 hours.
Well she feels TERRIBLE and has me stay the night and takes me to work in the morning. Well at work i get a call from Mr. Tinder girl saying how he understands ive been friends with his daughter for a while and he heard what happened and is literally buying me a car while on the phone with him! Turns out he was a multi millionaire and worked on Wall st."
"No i did not stay with her. Money can buy negative happiness apparently and also spoil you rotten."
"R.I.P. Michael J. Fox, my '95 Saturn that shook a lot, thanks for the insurance money :'|"
– newguyay
Drunk Hotel Heiress
"Amazing story!"
"I was on a vacation with some friends and on our way home from a alcohol and other things infused night we found a girl sleeping on a bench right in front of a closed coffe shop. As she was clearly not a hobo (judging from her clothing) we tried to wake her up and talk to her, because in this part of the city it was very unsafe, especially for a young girl dressed up for a night in the club... She was very drunk and could barely talk, after a couple of minutes she vomited and was desperately embarrassed. We weren't so sure of what to do, she was starting to feel save around us but was clearly very uncomfortable. We managed to get her address from her and decided to order a taxi. We were five guys, so we decided three of us should just head home, while I and a friend brought the girl to her apartment. Finally there, we asked for her keys, when she realized that she had lost her bag!
We called our buddies but none of them answered their phones. Well, we weren't exactly sober so we decided to smash in the door to her place, brought her to bed and wrote a short letter, mentioning the broken door, that her bag was missing and left an anonymous email-address for her to contact us if she wanted. Right when we got out of her appartment our buddies called, he had her bag, totally forgot that he took it when she was vomiting (as mentioned, a lot of alcohol has flown this night...). He took a cab and brought us the bag, we went up there again, put the bag beside her bed, plugged in the phone, saw a friend of hers was concerned, unlocked the phone with the passed out girls fingerprints, wrote a message to calm her concerned friend, plugged the phone to recharge, and added some lines to the before-mentioned letter."
"We headed home to sleep out our intoxication."
"The next day around noon we got an email from the girl. She was in the city for university, the apartment was not rented but BOUGHT by her father just so she has a place to live near uni. Her father was the owner of the second most expensive and exclusive hotel in the country. She was very, very thankful, said the smashed door was no problem at all, and after speaking to her father, we all have an all-inclusive weekend at the hotel for free!"
Genetics
Uncommon medical conditions and egg mutations take the spotlight.
Mutated Egg
"I cracked an egg and two yolks came out. I cracked another and three yolks came out. This was one after the other. Or consecutive as you might say in English."
"English isn't my first language, sorry for any mistakes."
Fascinating Patient
"I have 3 different unrelated liver diseases the odds of having all three is about 1/ 2,000,000."
"I have Non alcohol fatty liver disease (1/4) weight related, hemochromatosis (1/300) genetic, alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency (1/1700) genetic."
"The two genetic conditions are in completely unrelated genes, it was just bad luck!"
"The docs tell me I am fascinating medically, My blood test results are somewhat wacky, when they did a liver biopsy my liver was bright orange (its normally dark red / purple) but I am still alive and not expected to die anytime soon."
Physical Anamoly
"I was born with a hole in the internal walls in my heart."
"Apparently this is pretty rare."
– sorude27
Miracle Being Alive
"Took a common medication for a sinus infection when I was 15, and ended up with something called Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis Syndrome. The 'lesser' but more well known is called Steven Johnson's Syndrome."
"Basically it's a reaction that acts like a burn, attack's your mucous membranes and your skin blisters up and peels off. Like, I had no face, and almost all the skin north of my legs was gone. Pretty much awful."
"If I remember correctly the case rate is like 1 per million per year, and the mortality rate is basically tied to the % of skin you lose. Most lose 10-30%, I ended up losing 80%. Spent 2 months in ICU burn unit. An absolute miracle I'm alive. I didn't even end up needing skin grafts and didn't get infections which are a big issue when you just...don't have skin. To look at me now you'd never know, except for some uneven skin tone and low profile white spiderwebbing scars where the "burns" were deepest."
Continuing with my one-in-a-million story, my family accepted the invitation and we walked around. The family was warm, kind, and let us take pictures.
My family was ecstatic and emotional walking around in a familiar environment.
We took a group photo in the living room with the current homeowners before we left, and the guy I initially had contact with told me his mother said we were welcome to visit again any time, and that they would serve us Menudo. (They were a lovely Mexican family.)
I'm glad my mom insisted I go back and explain to the son why we were there. Had it been a different – and not as welcoming – family, we probably would never get to have that night of enjoying Menudo we are now looking forward to.
This example of a Japanese and a Mexican family interacting despite a language barrier between parents was an example of the American dream my dad sought for after leaving Japan so many years ago.
Some of the best moments in life happen when you're not actively seeking them.
The time in middle school when I unexpectedly won the approval of my team mates was an example of my happy accident.
Let me preface this to say I am not blessed with athletic capabilities whatsoever – specifically with sports – and I was always the last to be picked on teams.
It never bruised my ego as it was something I have come to expect early in my childhood that mostly consisted of practicing the flute and drawing manga.
I dreaded P.E. during school. It was not fun and I didn't want to inconvenience anyone who had to engage with me.
Anyway, we were playing softball, and – like Cinderella – I had a tendency of always running away from the ball, mostly out of fear that I would be smashed like a pumpkin.
There I was on the outfield when the opposing team member at bat smashed that ball in my direction like he had some sort of vendetta against me for having chest hair as a prepubescent and he didn't.
I swear I almost saw a trailing flare from that ball aiming for my face like a comet. I froze and instinctively raised my gloved hand in an attempt to shield my precious mug.
Before I knew it, I heard cheers erupting from my team mates in response to the ball that was firmly lodged in my grip, thereby declaring the batter was out.
I didn't earn that victory intentionally. But I sure as heck will own that moment, even if my delicate hand was throbbing inside that mitt.
Wondering about other people's fortuitous twists of fate, Redditor NotGeorgeBush72 asked the askReddit community:
"What is the coolest thing you have done by accident?"
Quick Reflexes
"First bartending shift ever, picked up a bottle of fairly expensive liquor (Patron Añejo). Slipped from my hand, held out my foot to slow the fall of the bottle to lessen the spread of shattered glass, and the bottle ended up resting on my outstretched foot completely unharmed."
"The one customer that was there (slow opening shift) saw the whole thing and freaked out, thinking I've been bartending for decades. I've never felt prouder of my reflexes."
The Close Call
"I stopped a lady at a crosswalk because her underwear was hanging out of the back of her skirt (look like a mistake in the bathroom maybe). She stepped back off the crosswalk in about 2 seconds later a vehicle making a left turn at high speed smashed into parked cars right next to where she would have been standing."
A Clean Save
"Waitressing in college I was carrying a huge tray of dirty dishes from the dining room to the kitchen down a little hallway. I slipped on some water, went down hard on my butt but managed to keep the tray perfectly level and didn't spill a thing. Not a major achievement but kept me from having to clean for the next half hour."
Extreme Sports Maneuver
"One time I was driving a kids bike in small circles so I went a bit too tight on my circle, ended up horizontal with my bike, ending up with JUST the side of the pedal touching the ground, did a full 360 turn, then popped back up like it was some 1000/1000 difficulty BMX move or somesh#t."
"Like.. is that even a move for BMX tricks?? Not sure but I did it, completely on accident but still."
Quick Reflexes
"Accidentally corrected a skid when I lost control of my car on an icy road. I hit my brakes too hard and noticed my car started to drift to the left. Instinctivly, I let off the gas and turned my steering wheel left, into the drift, and my car went back to driving in a straight line."
– Upnorth4
Too Cool For School
"High school. Walked by 2 kids in the hallway. Kid 1 playfully threw water bottle at Kid 2's back just as we passed each other. The bottle bounced off and I caught it with my hand without looking or even turning my head, and I just had a blank nonchalant expression as I did that. I handed it back to them with a poker face, but I was actually losing my mind and felt like f'king Spiderman lol."
Fate Or Coincidence?
"Bought someone a Coke without looking at it and it had their name on it."
Attitude Checked
"I got angry, so I crumpled up a receipt and threw it at the wall. It bounced off and landed in a vase on the counter. I stopped in my tracks and thought 'well I can't be mad after witnessing that.'"
The Oblivious Hero
"I had headphones in walking downtown a busy street, a kid almost hit me with his bike coming down the driveway so I stopped it by the handle bars. The mom came running down the driveway and I was thinking 'Oh great, a Karen.' After taking my headphones out she thanked me in a panic for stopping her son from flying into the street as a car passed by. Never noticed it drive by."
Twice Charmed
"When I was about 14/15 I was rushing down the stairs and tripped about 7 or 8 steps from the bottom, going into complete freefall for a moment. To avoid an extremely painful tumble, I instinctively reached out with my arm and happened to grab the newel post (the end bit of the banister) with my hand at the same time that one of my feet only just managed to make brief contact with a step. The momentum then swung my entire body around the newel post, my foot lost contact with the step again, then when I finally came to a stop I had landed firmly on both feet and didn't have a single scratch on me. One of the scariest moments of my life."
"It's either that or the time I gave my brother in law ball-in-a-cup for Christmas (based on a long-running joke we had, I honestly pick good presents). After trying it out for a good while and having no luck, he got frustrated and jokingly said it was broken. To make him feel better, I grabbed it off the floor and said it took practice and that nobody ever succeeds at getting the ball in the cup right away. To prove my point, I had a go myself and nailed it on my first try. Neither of us really knew what to say."
Lucky Guess
"I was taking a tour of one of the U.S government buildings, I believe the Capital but I'm not sure, during a school trip. During the tour, the guide showed us a chandelier and asked if anyone knew how much it was worth. Flippantly, I answered something like 4.7 million like I already knew the answer. Turns out, it was the correct answer: the tour guide said 'sounds like someone's been doing his research.' None of my friends believed me when I told them that I hadn't already known the answer. I believed me though."
Tripping The Light Fantastic
"My dad accidentally had the best acid trip of his life at a Grateful Dead concert. I'm old, my dad is old, this happened way back. At age 18, my dad had to wear a body cast due to surgery for his scoliosis. His buddies heard of a Grateful Dead concert a couple towns over in California, and they invited him along. My dad was laid flat in the back of an old Studebaker station wagon for the ride. When they arrived, my dad's buddies asked him to hide their hits of paper acid in his body cast so they could be discrete, since all of them had been arrested for possession prior. My dad obliged and all was going well for a bit. Once the Grateful Dead started playing, my dad was dancing around, best he could, and began to sweat. Cue the paper acid being absorbed into his system and suddenly he's tripping balls at a once in a lifetime concert."
Saving Christmas
"Christmas Party at a friend's new apt. She'd made the place lovely, after her return from Italy. She's set up her 1st adult Christmas tree. After dinner it's time for pumpkin pie and hot drinks, I'm getting my tea. From across the room I see someone accidentally brushed past the tree and it begins to wobble and spin heading for a fall with all of her hand blown Italian ornaments on it. Somehow I cross the room unspin the tree, set it back in its proper place (with all of its ornaments intact) and never spilled any tea."
The Miracle Shot
"We were playing a game of dodgeball, and since there were too much people on the benches, the coach decided to add a rule: anyone who can throw the ball directly into the basketball-goal (spelling?) can immediately deliver everyone."
"I had one of the balls in hand when he said that, and the moment he signaled the game to continue, I threw the ball randomly (because I have the worst aim ever) and it somehow went straight into it! I never managed to pull it off a second time, but boy was I proud for the entirety of that day!"
Fire In The Hole
"Target shooting at a friends house. He wasn't having much luck with his new rifle so of course I was giving him sh*t big time. He got a bit frustrated, handed the rifle to me and said 'If you can talk all that shit, here you do better than I did' He told me to shoot the bowling pin that hangs by twine on the left. I sarcastically replied "I'll shoot that b*tch down by taking out the string" I put it up to my shoulder, aimed for the center of the bowling pin and pulled the trigger. By some freak chance I hit the twine and the bowling pin dropped. I was celebrating because I honestly had not aimed at the twine. He was a bit salty until I told him that I have no f'kin idea how I hit that string because I wasn't even aiming for it LOL"
All In A Day's Work
"I was a lifeguard on the ocean. I was having a pretty shi* day, and on top of it my lunch was postponed an hour."
"I headed up the beach to the nearest hotel to eat. As I was leaving the restaurant I heard a crowd of people screaming near the pool. As I came down the stairs towards, I saw a young child floating face down in the water. I immediately pulled the kid out and gave rescue breathing until the EMT could arrive."
"The next day the parents walked down to my stand to thank me. They were originally told by their doctors they couldn't have children, but a few years later were blessed with this young boy..their only child. The mother told me I was their guardian angel that day."
"I'm not a very religious person, but this story still gives me goose bumps knowing that I was the right person in the right place at the right time for that boy. I started off angry about my lunch time change, but this was the outcome. :)"
Conspiracy theorists would have us believe that coincidences don't exist. On the surface it sounds silly. Of course they're are a thing; but then something happens that makes you wonder if just maybe...
Life is full of those moments, were the coincidence is a little too coincidental, ya know? Or maybe you don't know.
That's okay, cause we're going to talk about some. Reddit blew up when one user asked:
What are some of the coolest coincidences in history?
Things. Got. Spooky.
Y'all, the amount of stuff that's been determined by blind luck is honestly a little disconcerting.
The Moon
GiphyThe Moon is about 400 times smaller than the Sun, but it also just happens to be about 400 times closer. The result is that from Earth, they appear to be the same size.
Bermuda
In Bermuda in the early 70s a kid riding his scooter was hit by a taxi and tragically killed. A year later, his younger brother was riding his scooter and was hit and killed by a taxi.
They were both the same age.
Riding the same scooter.
Hit by the same taxi.
With the same driver.
And passenger.
And on the same street.
Dennis
Both versions of Dennis the Menace were created at the same time with no knowledge between either creator. An American one and the UK one. By all accounts, neither man knew, or had any way of knowing, that there was an equivalent comic being developed an ocean away. Both first appeared on March 12, 1951.
- DJ1066
Unsinkable
The "Unsinkable Woman"
Violet Jessop was an ocean liner nurse who is known for surviving the disastrous sinkings of RMS Titanic in 1912, and her sister ship HMHS Britannic in 1916.
In addition, she had been onboard RMS Olympic, the eldest of the three sister ships, when it collided with a British warship, HMS Hawke, in 1911.
Oops
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th Independence Day. Adams' last words were, "Thomas Jefferson survives".
Thomas Jefferson had died 5 hours earlier.
Dynasty
Classical era China changing dynasties because of a bad day of rain and some drunk dudes.
Liu Bang is a 3rd century Chief of Security who is supposed to be escorting prisoners. He drinks too much and falls asleep black out drunk. Some prisoners escape. When he wakes up he frees the others and runs away, because letting prisoners escape is punishable by the death penalty.
Some of his friends in the army get stuck due to heavy rain and are at risk of facing the death penalty for being late to an official event. They start a revolt, amass around 10000 villagers but it fails.
Liu Bang is inspired by this and wants to make his come back (and is still fearing for his head) so he creates a revolt in his county. Revolt gains in traction, he takes the capital.
That's the end of the Qin dynasty and Liu Bang becomes the emperor Gao Zu, first of the Han dynasty.
All of that because someone drank on the job and his friends were caught by rain.
Richard Parker
GiphyEdgar Allan Poe predicted the future. His only novel---- The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket ---- is about 4 shipwrecked men who run out of food and eat the cabin boy, Richard Parker.
46 years after it published, a yacht sank in real life and 3 of the 4 survivors also decided to eat the cabin boy... name Richard Parker.
- dorvann
This was the inspiration for Life of Pi:
The name Richard Parker for the tiger was inspired by a character in Edgar Allan Poe's nautical adventure novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). Richard Parker is a mutineer who is stranded and eventually cannibalized on the hull of an overturned ship, and there is a dog aboard who is named Tiger.
Martel (the author) also had another occurrence in mind in the famous legal case R v Dudley and Stephens (1884), where a shipwreck again results in the cannibalism of a cabin boy named Richard Parker, this time in a lifeboat.
A third Richard Parker drowned in the sinking of the Francis Spaight in 1846, described by author Jack London, and later the cabin boy was cannibalized.
"So many victimized Richard Parkers had to mean something" Martel suggested.
The Driveway
This one time in high school a friend and I had gotten stoned and were heading home around 10pm. After a little while a car is behind us, Friend got all paranoid that the car was a cop and wanted to "lose" him. So he took a turn, car behind us follows. Takes another. Car follows. And another. Now we are just wondering if the cop is messing with us or waiting until my friend makes a driving error that justifies a stop.
We're like f*** it, let's pull into a neighborhood and park in a driveway so it looks like it's our house. So we pull into a random neighborhood. The car follows. We pull into a random house's driveway park and turn off the car. Our stalker parks at the end of the driveway and just idles there
We sat in the driveway for like 5 min in a what the f*** do we do now state.We conclude it's probably not a cop now that we can see the car, and that we just have to walk down and talk to him and see why he was following us for so long.
....we were at his house
Plum Pudding
I love the plum pudding story:
"The French writer Émile Deschamps claims in his memoirs that, in 1805, he was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger named Monsieur de Fontgibu. Ten years later, the writer encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him that the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be de Fontgibu. Many years later, in 1832, Deschamps was at a dinner and once again ordered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only de Fontgibu was missing to make the setting complete – and in the same instant, the now-senile de Fontgibu entered the room, having got the wrong address."
- tinkrman
Mark Goes Out
Mark Twain was born shortly after an appearance of Halley's Comet, and he predicted that he would "go out with it" as well; he died the day after the comet made its closest approach to the Earth. The comet only appears every 75-76 years.
Angel's Glow
GiphyNot sure if this really counts as a coincidence, but it's a super cool story and really lucky for the soldiers that it involved.
So after the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 (during the civil war), multiple wounded soldiers were left on the cold, muddy ground in Tennessee to await help. During the two nights they spent laying there some of the men noticed a faint blue glow coming from their cuts, when help finally arrived they found that the men who had glowing cuts were more likely to survive. The glow was named 'The Angel's Glow' but no more research was done into it. Until in 2017 when a history buff decided to go to where the Battle of Shiloh was held and take a few soil samples.
His mom just so happened to be a microbiologist who helped him examine the soil. They found these nematodes that are known for burying into insect larva and vomiting chemicals that kill the host organism, and they discovered that a bioluminescent bacterium that glows faint blue lives inside those nematodes.
So basically the nematodes were burying into organisms that were in the soldiers wounds and vomiting these chemicals that killed a lot of the more deadly bacteria that had gotten into the soldiers wounds. Some of that bacteria was bioluminescent, creating the glow those soldiers saw!
Sorry this was so long, hope you found it as interesting as I did :)
Kevin Lewis
Two tall, bald, African American men named Kevin Lewis were given $1,000,000 each by the Horseshoe Casino after Kevin Lewis won a draw, but they accidentally gave the prize to Kevin Lewis instead, so both got to keep the money.
Mexico 2020
This year, Cinco de Mayo fell on taco Tuesday in the middle of a pandemic named after a Mexican beer.
- s7even
March 1908
Less than one month ago, the oldest living woman and the oldest living man in Britain shared a birthday - 29 March 1908. The second oldest living woman in Britain was born on 30 March 1908.
Whatever was in the water in March 1908, it provided 5 of our supercentenarians.
Hilda May Clulow (née Heath) 15 March 1908-24 December 2019 111 years, 284 days
Joan Eileen Hocquard 29 March 1908 Living 112 years, 66 days
Robert Weighton 29 March 1908-28 May 2020 112 years, 60 days
Alfred Smith 29 March 1908-3 August 2019 111 years, 127 days
Violet Davies-Evans 30 March 1908-5 May 2020 112 years, 36 days