Your Weirdest Coincidences

When I was 18, my friend and I were walking through a part of a town we didn't know. I spotted something on the ground, and picked it up. It was a leg from a coffee table or something similarly short, with the two dowels still sticking out at right angles on the top. As I'm walking along, wondering how this thing managed to end up on the side of a boulevard, there's a shout and two tough-looking characters came over, acting all hostile.

Except I had this club in my hand, with dowels sticking out of it.

We ended up having a civil conversation, and they warned us to watch out for nasty characters in the neighborhood. It wasn't until they'd left that I clued in to the club business.

It still makes me shake my head. If I was religious, you can bet I'd be ascribing that particular coincidence to a deity.

It's not particularly weird, but...

I married my ex-wife when we were still in college, so we had very little money. One day we were walking to a grocers, and I spotted a penny on the sidewalk. I stooped to pick it up. She laughed at me for bothering.

We knew how much cash we had on us, and mentally tallied how much we were spending as we shopped. Came to check out and pay, and the amount was one cent more than we had. Until I remembered that penny.

Looking back on it, that interaction between my ex and I was a good indicator, in so many ways, of how that relationship was going to go.

This just happened not ten minutes ago. I have been away from home, out of state, babysitting my 2 year old grandson. I got back on Sunday and have been feeling down. Really, really down. Naturally I miss the toddler because he loves his grammy and all of her stories are new for him. I miss the other two grandkids but they are beginning to outgrow Grammy. They are 14 and 11 and this is to be expected but still sad. I spent a lot of airplane time thinking about the time I spent with them when they were little.

I came home to an empty house because the daughter who has lived with me for the past 6 years paid down her college loans and found a job in Kansas City. The house is empty. School is starting and this was always a busy time in our family since so many of us teach. But I retired. No lesson plans, rosters, new textbooks etc. for me. Like I said, I am a bit down, even teary, thinking of past times with the house full and me in demand for meals, washing, clean up, discipline--all the things I used to do.

I loaned a library book to my sister before I left on vacation "Fashionable Food"--a recipe book but a fun one, with recipes in decade long timelines from 1900 to the nineties. Some of the recipes are fascinatingly awful and some we remember from our childhood. Anyway I had an e-mail that the book was overdue. I ransacked the house and then remembered it was 30 miles away at my sister's house. She is busy teaching school now so I had to make the drive and ransack HER house for the book. It was on her nightstand and then I had to drive 30 miles back to return the book. I was a little pissed off about the useless trip. Okay, maybe more than a little pissed off at myself, for being absent minded like an old lady!


Just now I picked up the book to return it. I noticed for the first time that my sister had a bookmark. I took it out expecting a bill or part of a letter but it was a funeral card from January 22, 1996 for my bachelor uncle George's funeral--my godfather. We spent a lot of time together when I was a little kid. He was the guy who always bought Science books for me and saved his National Geographic magazines for me so we could read them together. He took me on garden tours and worked for Dr. Pepper Bottling, so I had all kinds of neat Squirt and Dr. Pepper promos. The thing is, I have always felt guilty because as I got older we didn't have much in common. I saw him at holidays and family stuff but you know how it is.

On the back was this:

Time flies
Sun's rise
And shadows fall.
Let time go by.
Love is forever over all.

Yeah. Cornball lyrics but exactly right! I am crying but I feel better.--s6