Impossible coincidences

Share your one-in-a-million coincidence stories. You know, situations in which what happened is nearly unimaginable, something which if you saw in a movie you would have to say "yeah right, things like that don't happen in real life".

Mine aren't particularly amazing, but I'll get things going.

- When I was 16, I was going to a Halloween party and decided to dress like a pimp. I had a fun costume - purple suit, cane, leopard-print hat, and some bling. But I wanted some sunglasses and didn't have any. I needed some brown sunglasses. So I asked my dad to drive me to the local Marshall's to pick up a cheap pair before the party. The massive parking lot was completely empty except for one or two cars. He pulled into a spot in the middle of the lot, and as I got out of the car I found a pair of brown sunglasses laying there at my feet. Perfect for the costume. Needless to say we didn't go to Marshall's.

- When I was 15, I was playing the online game StarCraft a lot. I was trying to create a new screen-name for battle.net (the interface for joining online games). Since I was in my brief Metallica-loving phase, I tried the name Master_of_Puppets but it was taken. So I made something else up instead. I created a game, and the first person that joined it had the name Master_of_Puppets. There were more than 100,000 people on the network at that time. Weird.

Share yours. I'm sure something even more weird has happened to some of you.

Yesterday, my friend and I went to a restaurant, were seated, and our orders were taken. The waitress then tells us that the couple before us ordered exactly what we did. The female ordered what my friend ordered, and the male ordered what I ordered.

Stuff like that happens when we're together. Another time, we were having a chat about dreams we had. She tells me she had a dream about someone named Dante that she had shot and killed, and about how vivid it was. She was chasing this man down with a gun in her hand. As we were driving home the car in front of us had a vanity tag with the name "Dante" right on it.

When I was a kid, I picked up the old land line to call my buddy. I hadn't dialed the number yet and I was suprised that there was no dial tone. The buddy I was calling had just called me and the phone hadn't rang.

I once picked up $20 on the sidewalk. True story.

Except that it was 20 pesos (worth about $1 at the time).

My sister and I go to the same university. Both of us have a class in a particular room that seats about 75 students. It turns out that we sit in the same seat.

Check out this story...

http://cbs3.com/watercooler/michigan....2.812871.html

A buddy of mine does wedding photography on the side. About 2 weeks ago, he's sitting on the couch at home flipping channels on TV and sees on the local news a car crash killed a young guy. After describing the crash, they flash a picture of the victim.. its a picture my buddy took of the groom at his wedding 3 months earlier. Another time i went to england to visit relatives. I was visiting second cousins and told them that I worked with this guy that did a little photography on the side with a guy named Dean. One of my second cousins went to work the next day and was talking to one of her co-workers about me visiting from overseas and that I did a little photography work on the side. The first thing her co-worker asked is "Does he work with a guy named Dean?" It turns out her co-worker was the uncle of my friend Dean. Small world, huh?

I was in in London in Spring 2007 and decided to visit the Pal Zileri store. I still remember the guy I talked to there, I brought a pair of pants from him and was on my merry way after getting them hemmed the next day. I returned in August 2008, I walked into the same store by Harrods, and the same guy was standing there in the exact same corner I saw him standing in the first time, without hesitating he just looked at me and greeted me using my first name! The guy actually remembered my name over a year later which just blew my mind.

In 2007I went to dubai. I went on a desert safari, and when you go on these they put 4 other people in the SUV. I was by myself, so they filled up the SUV with 3 from my hotel who also signed up. At first it was kind of an akward silence because I didn't know if I should make conversation with them or not. The drive from the hotels to the actual starting point of the safari was almost an hour. So the driver stops at one point to pick something up and gets out. I just sort of turn to them (I was in the front seat, they were in the back) and just start talking to them. I asked them where they were from, they said they were from a small town I'd probably never heard of, I told them to try me, it turns out they're from my hometown! We got to talking some more, and it turns out I was helping with the photos at one of their family weddings half-way around the world about 6 months earlier!

My grandfather, bless his soul, lies in a mausoleum where beside it is a mausoleum of another man who shares his dates of birth and death.

A close friend's cousin had a subscription to the Mega Millons or Powerball which played the same numbers he selected week after week. He received an email to renew 2 weeks before it expired so he renewed it a week or so later. Then his mother-in-law turned for the worse after a long illness, so he had to accompany his wife to Florida on short notice.

When he came back from Florida he checked the lottery numbers and couldn't believe it, so he rechecked and double checked, the winning numbers were the same as the ones he selected!! OMG!! And the prize was $68M! The problem was the subscription wasn't renewed because the credit card number the lottery had on file just expired. If his MIL didn't pass away, he wouldn't have gone to Florida and he'd have caught the email requesting him to update his credit card info. The rub is he didn't get along with his MIL, it's like one final major blow from his MIL beyond the grave.

^I'm not certain, but I'd say this is more in the "cruel irony" vein than impossible coincidence.

I'm just sayin...

Originally Posted by GoSurface

Click to expand...

Yesterday, my friend and I went to a restaurant, were seated, and our orders were taken. The waitress then tells us that the couple before us ordered exactly what we did. The female ordered what my friend ordered, and the male ordered what I ordered.

dude, someone who knows probability can do the math, this is faaaar from impossible. Probably happens several times a day at that restaurant. But, it's good to use if you are trying to sleep with the female.

A math teacher of mine from junior high days told me that in any group of at least 30 people there is likely a pair of people with the same birthday.

Doesn't seem statistically possible.

I've asked around in group settings and I'm surprised how often it occurs. I guess that's not really a coincidence.

Depending on the restaurant it happens all the time.

Girl: I'll have the chicken caeser
Guy: Bacon Cheeseburger

repeat

K

My freshman roommate and I both went to high schools with the same name, both fenced, planned to major in the same things, were of the same ethnic background, had done the same extracurriculars in high school and had older sisters who went to the same college and were studying the same subject in grad school.