I was fishing on my boat about 2 miles out in the ocean and a bird just lands on my fishing pole that I had in my hand and it stayed there for a while maybe a foot from my hand. Not as good as the other guys story about his grandmother's art work and meeting his future wife, but thats what happened.

Ok - this is nuts. I was on my first day at a job in New York City and had moved there the day before from the Midwest. My coworker asked if I had ever been to New York before and I told her that a couple of years prior I had taken a semester off during college and lived there. I mentioned that I delivered lunches in the very neighborhood we were working in and I just adored this one doorman who worked at a building just down the street. I said to her, “you’ll never guess how I met him? “And she responded without hesitation, “you handed him a white rose.” I was floored. I just met this woman minutes before and I had never told anybody about the white rose because I was embarrassed. Then she said, “his name was Richie, right? “Still flabbergasted, I said yes and how did she know? She said she worked in that office building a few years back and was friends with him. One night when she was leaving the building, he said, “Hey, you’re never going to believe this, but this girl came up to me today and handed me this white rose because she wanted to meet me. Isn’t that cool?” I couldn’t believe it.

Fast forward to a few months and I was having drinks with that same co-worker and her mom and sisters came out to meet us. Her mom was first gen Irish and asked me where I was from. I told her I was from Ohio. She said, “oh, I don’t think I know anyone from Ohio except Mary x” who is from our town in Ireland. I asked her to repeat the name thinking I didn’t hear correctly with her thick accent. She said, “Mary x.” I responded, “Mary has been my next door neighbor for 25 years and practically raised me.” Both of these stories still blow me away.

Deep sigh…

In 1965, at the age of 23, my beloved father — who just passed away last month at 83 — came to this country from eastern Europe to start his new life in the ‘promised land’ of America where he ultimately became very successful after toiling in the city for 60 years to provide for me, my siblings and my beloved late mother.

The only problem was, he didn’t speak English that well and was obviously concerned that it would hold him back in his new country.

That same year, a brand new movie came out, called ‘The Sound of Music’ which he was very interested in as it reminded him of the “hills from the old country” that he wouldn’t see again until The Wall fell in 1989.

Determined to learn his newly adopted language, he walked into a seedy Times Square movie theater that year and watched that movie intently to learn the language — not once; but ten (10) times that year. It’s a memory he would never forget and occasionally bring up over the years

Flash forward 50 years and it’s 2015 and it’s the 50th anniversary of that movie’s release. To commemorate it, the Academy had invited a very well known Lady Gaga to come perform the famed title track during the Oscars - with beloved star of the film, Julie Andrews, there to witness it.

The performance was other-worldly and completely out of character of Lady Gaga’s nasally vocal range. It’s like an alien took over her vocal tract and it sounds nothing like her (Google it) — much like the way Bob Dylan threw his voice on ‘Nashville Skyline.’

My father, now in his 70’s, watched this famed performance in real time and was blown away… just completely brought back to his youth as a young man facing down this crazy city, and Stefanie Germanotta was the one blowing his mind.

He turned to me during the performance, nearly in tears, and asked me who she was. I let out a comic sigh and began to explain her history & cultural value. He then turned back to me and said,

“She’s so incredibly talented. If you ever meet her in the city, please let her know how proud I am of her, will you?”

I smirked to myself, laughed it off, and said, “Sure, Dad…” knowing darn well that would never happen.

FLASH FORWARD to a few months later… I am hanging out on the LES with my rocker friends in an underground bar downtown, all getting drunk and having a blast when all of a sudden I need to excuse myself to go hit the bathroom downstairs to take a leak.

As I make my way down the stairs, I look up and walking up the stairs is none other than Lady Gaga. Alone. Just me & her on a narrow stairwell in dirty bar in the city.

I take a deep breath, along with a big leap of faith, open my lips, and go…

“Ummmm… can I tell you something?”

She turns to me, fully expecting me to bust into some “OMG, I’m like your biggest fan, OMG!!” diatribe when I just turn and go,

“…sooooooo, my old man asked me to tell you something…”

…as I explained the entire story above, fully expecting her to be completely apathetic to the admission, etc.

I look up after the words leave my lips only to find her eyes the size of the moon — completely swelled up with humility and compassion nearly bursting into tears as she told me how much that story meant to her.

“Can I tell YOU something now?” she said, as I braced for impact.

“I rehearsed that song for 8 straight weeks for 8 hours a day leading up to that performance knowing how important it was to an entire generation of people like your father. So please, tell him *I* said thank you, ok?!”

I was completely blown away, thanked her for her hard work on my father’s behalf, hugged her and sent her off as I drove home out to Long Island that night.

The next morning, my dad walked into the kitchen and asked how my night went. I smirked, turned to him, and said…

“Have a seat, pops… do I have a story for you, old man.”

Rest in Peace, Dad. I love you.

My brother passed in an accident. His fiance was upset with my family during the funeral and afterward she never spoke to us again. Him and his fiancé had two dogs.

About 3 months after his passing, on a random Saturday, my girlfriend at the time and I went to a local dog shelter to see if we could maybe adopt a dog. I was really depressed and sad about his passing. It still felt very fresh.

While I was walking through the shelter looking at these dogs I saw a dog that looked familiar. One of my brothers dogs had a beautiful orange color coat and was long and thin like a greyhound. She may have been a mix. When I saw her name I just about fainted. Her name was impala. That’s what he named her because his favorite car was a Chevy impala. I immediately asked to speak to the person in charge of the shelter and explained the situation. I gave them the name of my brother’s finance and asked if she had surrendered her. He explained that under normal circumstances they would never give out that information but would make an exception. He confirmed she had given her up for adoption and allowed us to adopt her.

My girlfriend and I both cried all night with her like I’m crying as I type this. She was a very loving dog and so so special. She lived for 10 years and every time I looked at her she reminded me of my brother and we loved her so much. It was extremely sad when she passed and we miss her dearly. I hope my brother was looking down on me smiling knowing that for whatever reason we decided to go to a random dog shelter on a random Saturday and found his dog. We never found out if his fiancé kept the other dog because he was not at that shelter.

This is my 1 in 1,000,000 thing that happened to me.
May they both be resting in peace.

Maybe not exactly one in a million but I find this little story/experience super magical and rare for sure.


Back in 2017 I took a two week trip to Iceland with my ex and some friends. We rented a truck and drove around the entire island, camping at various spots. It was in late August by the way, so Iceland summer with the sun being out till pst midnight, very cool to witness.


On one of the last big stretches of driving we had to do we ended up getting a bad flat tire and had to pull over to the side of the local highway we were on which had two huge grassland fields on either side. It was the middle of the night and actually dark out, and the closest roadside assistance was about two hours away so needless to say we had some time to spend. We decided to just hang out in the trunk of the car and drink some beers while we waited. Then my friend Louisa shouted “oh my god guys look” and pointed towards the field. Then seemingly out of nowhere a huge herd of wild horses approached the wire fence of the field by where we were parked and seemingly came to check on us and hung out with us the whole time we waited for roadside assistance.


But then it got even better, my other friend then shouted “WHOA LOOK UP GUYS” and we all somehow hadn’t even noticed that the Aurora borealis was shining MAGICALLY BRIGHT in the sky above us. None of us had ever seen it in person and definitely weren’t expecting to see it on the second to last night of our trip. It just all felt so so magical and like we were SUPPOSED to get a flat tire that night. What started off as a major inconvenience ended up becoming one of our fondest memories of that trip, and I’ll never forget it.

Wife and I were going through our Pokémon cards one day and organizing them into a shared binder, she had soo many more than me because most of mine were stolen by a bully of mine back in elementary school.

When we were looking through them I noticed on a few of the cards something I did when I was younger, I left little nail imprints on the corners of my cards so I'd know which were mine when i used to play and trade.. I asked my wife where she got those cards as all of those nail printed cards were the same that were stolen from me..

She says "Oh some kid back in elementary school used to have a crush on me and gave me these cards"

I asked what his name was.

She says Matt S... my freaking elementary school bully!!

So wife and I went to completely different schools on opposite sides of the same town, she moved to Cali, came back to NY for a week to visit parents, 2 days before going back to Cali we randomly met at mutual friends house in our mid 20s, hit it off got married 2 years later, bought a house decided to combine our cards to decorate the game room and now I have all my old Pokémon cards back.

We were meant to be together.. the wife and the cards.

In January of 2021, my partner and I were verbally and physically attacked by a drunk horde of Amish people on a beach in Florida.

My house was hit by lightning in the morning and someone robbed my house later that same day. All the electronics they stole were fried from the lightning strike.

Oh! I love telling this story!

I was dating a girl, and on our second date she made me dinner at her apartment. Sometime during the evening I walked around her place looking at the art she had on the wall. One print looked very familiar. She said she found it at a thrift store a few years back and it was the first decoration she bought when she moved to this state. Then it hit me why it looked familiar: my grandmother had painted it. I'd been looking at the original my entire life. My grandmother was a prolific local artist, but it was the only painting she ever had made into a print.

Anyway, we've been married 16 years now, and the original piece hangs in our house.