There is a vast ocean of difference between ‘impossible’ and merely ‘improbable.’ In the former case, there’s exactly a zero percent probability that something will happen. In the latter case, no matter how small the chances are, eventually, the event will occur. Given enough time, you might experience plenty of improbable experiences yourself.
Redditor u/yankeevandal sparked an interesting online discussion after asking folks to share the most “statistically improbable” things that ever happened to them. We’ve collected their most fascinating tales to share with you, Pandas. Check out the best ones below, and upvote your faves as you scroll down.
This post may include affiliate links.
Broke free of a 10 year addiction to m**h. Took a very long time to feel some kind of normal again. 10 years clean this year, woohoo
I got a degree after aging out of foster care ☺️
Not an exciting life or death incident, but something rather sweet:
I took care of my late father for the final two years of his life. He had Alzheimer’s and pulmonary fibrosis, among other issues, so we had a lot more bad days than good. In the summer of 2019, I took my dad out for a “date” one day to a historic old drugstore that has phenomenal milkshakes (one of his favorite foods in the world). It was one of Dad’s increasingly rare good days, where he chatted merrily with me about all sorts of old memories. I felt like I had my dad’s former self back for just a little while. We had such a wonderful time that I intended to take him there again soon. However, this ended up being our last “date.”
For most of the remainder of that year, Dad declined too much (mentally and physically) for me to take him out for anything other than very short grocery trips or to appointments. The following year . . . enter the pandemic. It was a very, very rough year with Dad. In January of 2021, my father died, alone, in a hospital in another state (our state ran out of hospital beds and he had suffered a traumatic fall that required hospitalization). That day in 2019 ended up being the last truly happy day I had with my Dad and the last fun outing he ever got to experience.
Three months after my dad died, I met a wonderful man online. (Nine days after signing up for a one year membership, because “surely it’s going to take time to find someone truly compatible with a shy nerd like me!”) A few months later, we decided to try a first date. He lived three hours away, but wanted me to be comfortable, so he volunteered to drive to my town for the date. He looked online for an appealing restaurant to suggest, and excitedly told me about this really neat historic drugstore we could go to. . . .
We went on a very crowded day (local festival — oops) and had to wait quite a while for a table. The waitress sat us at the EXACT same table where I sat with my dad nearly two years earlier! I was even in the same seat.
Three months later, we got engaged at that drugstore.
So the beginning of the end of one chapter of my life crossed paths with the beginning of the best (so far) chapters. My husband and I have since decided to make a trip back there at least once a year. Dad really would have loved my husband.
🥰 beautiful and sad. I feel so bad for those who lost loved ones during the pandemic and who couldn't be with them. I can't even imagine. But so col that she met someone like this. 😭
The internet user’s r/AskReddit thread was extremely popular with the Reddit crowd. At the time of writing, the thread had over 21.6k upvotes. The success of the question came down to its relatability, as well as how much it resonated with people’s curiosity.
After all, most of us are intrigued by mysterious and bizarre events. Not only that, the odds are that we have similar stories of our own to share.
i have been hit in the head by live squirrels three times in my life each on separate occasions.
Lost my house in civil court. Represented myself and won in appeals court twice. Since my case was unique in this state, my cases were published both times. Moving back into my old house soon.
Husband and I visited our old hometown and went to a used book store we used to frequent.
I picked up a familiar title in nostalgia and flipped it open to find a school student’s ID card.
The name and photo on the ID?
My husband.
Turns out his mom had donated books to that store many years before we all moved away from that area. He must have been using it as a bookmark and forgotten.
It’s not so surprising considering we used to live in that area, but the ID was nearly 10 years old by the time we found it.
That book was sitting on the shelf for nearly a *decade* untouched, waiting for me to come along and pick it up. Bizarre.
The fact of the matter is that the rareness of an event is always calculated in relation to something else. Just because something happens less frequently doesn’t necessarily reduce the impact of the event itself. So, for instance, the chances of lightning striking you are roughly 1 in 15,300, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Though these odds are incredibly low, you’d probably agree that it’s a life-changing event for anyone who gets struck. Given the intrigue of the event and the number of people on Planet Earth, you’re likely to hear about statistical outliers often, even if they’re very rare in reality. That’s why you mostly hear news stories about dramatic (and often negative) events, not mundanity.
I received my heart transplant after being on the list for only 7 hours.
First got cancer in 1993.
In 2003, they told me to get my affairs in order, I had 6 months.
In 2021, they told me it's spread to my bones and lungs. They gave me 5 years.
In 2023, two years down and feeling about 90%
my SIL got 5 years about 10 years ago. Modern medicine advances will do that.
Many years ago I had a terrible day where my then GF broke up with me, then I did terribly in a final exam for a college class, then I lost my wallet, and finally, as I was doing the Charlie Brown sad walk back home some random branch broke off a tree as I was walking on the sidewalk underneath it and the damn thing fell on top of me and hit me square across the shoulder and knocked me to the ground. I just burst out laughing because it was so ridiculous.
People tend to ignore things that don’t confirm their beliefs or expectations. And the same could be said for perceiving statistical anomalies, too.
“Think of things like, 'Yesterday I ate one egg for breakfast, found two pennies on the floor, passed three ambulances on my way to work, got four phone calls before lunch, and got five texts during lunch. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!' It sounds like numerology magic but really that person just ignored the nine socks in their drawer and the eleven emails they got in the afternoon because those didn't contribute to the 'miracle,'” one of the moderators running r/nevertellmetheodds explained to Bored Panda during an earlier interview. According to them, genuinely interesting, wild coincidences are quite rare.
I was on a road trip with my cousins in the 80s. One of them kept playing the same song over and over by rewinding the tape and playing it again. The song was “another one bites the dust”. After three plays in a row the driver pulls out the tape, says enough! And turned on the radio… Sure enough that song was playing on the radio right then.
Reminds me of just yesterday - was listening to a song on my phone, when my mom called. My ringtone for her is exactly the same song and it was also that exact part of the song (the chorus) when she rang. That was pretty cool. (For those wondering, the song's "Iridescent" by Linkin Park)
Got left a written message to call a girl, mistakenly called another girl instead with the same name....we've been married for 14 years.
My son died at 11 months old for 2 1/2 minutes. I got to hold him as he took his first breaths, hold him while he took his last breaths and then got to hold him as he took his first breaths again. It’s something as a mother I don’t wish on anyone. It was by far the scariest night of my life. I’ll never forget it, New Years Eve 2007 in Fairbanks, AK.
My son statistically was not supposed to survive the pregnancy. I nearly lost him 3 times in the first trimester, I started going into active labor at 20 weeks, got put on strict bed rest and then developed preeclampsia. I also had hyperemesis through the whole pregnancy, I couldn’t even hold down water and needed daily IV fluid and nutrition. I was 17 lbs lighter than my pre pregnancy weight when I delivered him at 39 weeks. By all of that he shouldn’t be here now.
To make things even weirder the doctor that kept me from losing him in my pregnancy was the doctor that treated him in Alaska. A completely different hospital, all the way across the country from where we first met. It felt like divine intervention to see his face and I knew deep in my soul my son was going to be ok.
My son is a happy, healthy teenager now. I am sitting here crying thinking about that night. It definitely still feels like a gut punch when I think about it.
that's like multiple improbable things at the same time. insane that your doctor was there in alaska
Which of these stories captivated your attention the most? What are the most improbable situations that you've ever been in, Pandas? What's your go-to advice for dealing with very unlikely setbacks? We'd love to hear your thoughts and learn more about what you've faced in life, so feel free to swing by the comment section.
Picking the slowest checkout lane in the grocery store every single time for the last 40 or so years.
My friend was going to Ireland to visit her extended family for the first time and invited me along. We had a great time meeting her aunts and uncles, seeing the beautiful sights, etc. On our last night in Ireland, the family all got together for dinner, some rousing laughs, and a general awesome time. Her cousin had been traveling that week and was only in town for one night and so she and her boyfriend swung by to say hi and bye. They left for the airport to NYC and we went to sleep, getting up at 4am to catch our own flight to NYC.
Two days later, I had to be in NYC for a job interview. I wasn't familiar with the Wall St. area, so I went extra early just in case I couldn't find it. But as luck would have it, I found it with no problem and had 40 minutes to kill.
I had no idea what to do, considered getting food but didn't want to risk staining my clothes or having an upset stomach or anything, so I wandered around a little until I stumbled on the Barnes & Noble bookstore. Thinking this was perfect, I went in and walked slowly through the store looking for somewhere to sit. There weren't any sort of private spaces on the first floor so I found the escalator and started heading up.
As I approach the halfway mark, I see a young couple going down on the escalator. As our eyes meet, we recognize each other and at the exact same time, as we both met halfway up/down the escalator, we pointed to each other and turned as we passed each other, mouths open in shock.
My Friend's Cousin and Her Boyfriend. Two nights ago I had met them for the first time and we had been laughing and sharing food and wine in her aunt's house In IRELAND. And now here we are, crossing paths exactly halfway on the escalator. A moment sooner or later and we would have completely missed each other.
She quickly came back up the escalator and we chatted about how CRAZY this coincidence was.
I nailed the job interview too because I just felt this surge of Right Time Right Place-ness that meant I was supposed to be there. I was so full of confidence and optimism, I made the whole panel of interviewers laugh and talk comfortably with me and got the job!
My dads birthday was 3-3, my brother is 6-6, mine is 7-7 and my son is 11-11.
I won't post my actual bday on here because internet, but my stepson's birthday is the day before mine. Kinda crazy it happened like that.
My best friend was born the day before me in the same hospital. I was his best man and he was mine. We are still friends 50 years later. :D
Load More Replies...
Or if you're from the US, 3-3, 6-6, 7-7, and 11-11. We do dates backwards here.
You and your backwards dates now you've gone and messed it up lol 🤣🤣
Load More Replies...
I was born on d-Day (June 6) and my brother was born on Pearl Harbor day(December 7)! what makes it even more funny is we are military kids!
I'm June 6th too, and got engaged on December 7th. Keep joking around that we need to get married on May 8th to keep up with the WWII theme
Load More Replies...
My birthday is on the exact same day as my dad's - not the same year, of course. Guess I was a very special birthday present.
My husband and daughter share the same birthday too. They both love sharing.
Load More Replies...
I worked for a small in home daycare years ago. Toddler room had three kids with birthdays one right after the other, and the teacher in that room was the day after. The room could take a fourth kid, per licensing. We all joked, only if the birthday is the day before or the day after the three kids and the teacher. The next enrollee was the day before, so naturally he was accepted!
My mom's birthday was 12/26, my son was born 12/26, my dad died 12/26.
I too was born on the 11th of the 11th. Not at 11 though
Load More Replies...
Our eldest daughter shares her birthday with one nephew. Our eldest son shares his birthday with one of my brothers. Husband and 2nd daughter almost shared a birthday (she just got in the day before). Too many others to list but several familiy members either share a birthday, or death day, or came on the day another died.
My daughter's adoptive dad's birthday was the day after I delivered her.
I was born on my grandmother’s, teacher’s and classmate’s birthday
mu mother, two friends and my sister have the same birthday. Also another one of my friend's and the other set of twins in my family's birthdays are the day after.
Me, my twin, her father in law and my husband all have the same bday. 11-15
My sister, grandma, and cousin all share the same birthday :D
My mom’s birthday was 7-7-33, my brother’s birthday is 11-22-66. My son was born on Valentine’s Day. His first best friend was born on St Patrick’s Day. My son’s oldest biological brother was also born on St Patrick’s Day. (We think our son was in the Russian orphanage because he was the 3boy born to his parents in less than 3 years! That oldest one was born in 2002 & our son was born in 2004…6 weeks early).
My first child's birthday is 02-12-12, my second, 06-16-16. Their birthdays are 4 years, 4 months, 4 days and 4 hours apart.
My mother and my uncle (older sister/younger brother) were both born in November, only nine days apart. By date, my uncle comes first, but my mother was actually four years older.
My grandfather and I were born 50 years apart on the same month. My grandmother and my sister were born 50 years apart on the same month. Our family birthday parties were always for 2, until each of them passed away. In addition, my FIL, hubs and son all have birthdays a couple days from eachother and in succession of oldest to youngest. Oh and all are the first born in their immediate families.
My family stitched me right up. My Mum, Brother and Dad are 17th, 18th, 19th of Jan. Me? 29th Oct. Mum and Dad were born in the same year, makes it easy to remember ages 😀
A former senior pastor at our church church was born on April 1st. His brother was born on October 31st.
My coworker has two children by two different women, 14 years apart and they have the same birthday.
There's a French footballer called Antoine Griezmann who has 3 kids of all different ages all born on 8th April.
Here's a fun one! My brother and his wife have dates like this: her birthday, their anniversary, his birthday.
I am the oldest of 3 girls and I was born on Labor day, my middle sister was born on Memorial Day and the youngest sister was born on my parent's first date anniversary lol. Middle sister's birthday would kick off the summer and mine is usually the last major party of the summer right before back to school.
My Husband, My Son and I all share the same day. My Father, My Son, Uncle are the same month. My Husband and other Son the same month. My Sister and Mother same Month. My Mother, My Sister and I all got married exactly the same age, the same amount of years after we met our spouses. ...and it goes on and on....
Met my husband shortly after I moved to a new town. He had moved there about a month earlier. Found out on our first date that we lived about four blocks away from each other - I'd picked a restaurant close to my house if I needed to bail. We both walked to our first date.
I'm sure he thought I was a drama Queen at first, two of my friends died within two weeks of each other (I was mid 30s, both were 40 or under). He called for our second date while I was shopping for a funeral dress (she was very stylish, so we dressed to the nines). He called for our third date while I was still processing the sudden death of a dear friend that morning. Bless him, he assessed the situation, asked if I still wanted to go do something in a few days (I said yes, but I couldn't make decisions right now, so could he just plan something), he said "yep, do you need to talk?" I said no, and he said "I will let you know when I figure something out, I'm so sorry," then hung up. He did exactly what I asked him to do in the moment and took all the pressure off about his part of my situation. Now he's sitting in our living room with a cat in his lap.
♥️
My hand eye coordination is horrible, I can't hit where I aim no matter what. My husband and I were throwing leftover water balloons at each other when miracles of miracles. I aimed for his chest and hit his groin, as he was doubled over screaming in pain I let another one fly. That one landed in his wide open mouth perfectly. I was so proud of myself!
Riding my bicycle on a commercial fishing pier as a kid I lost control and rode off the edge with a 20' drop to exposed rocks at low tide.
I tried to stop myself going over by planting my feet on the edge of the pier, but I knew my bike was too heavy.
Somehow the bike stopped, halfway over at a 45 degree angle. However now the seat was in the small of my back preventing me from getting off, and I couldn't budge it at all to get the bike back up.
A fisherman finally ran over to help me and we decided he would pull me as hard as he could and I'd let the bike fall.
I jumped to the side as he pulled me back to the pier, and it worked.
However.
My bike was still there, not moving at all.
When I examined what had happened, there was a piece of rebar sticking out from the edge of the pier bent upwards in an L shape, and it passed diagonally through the spokes of my front tire and completely wedged my bike in place.
It was the ONLY spot on the 300' long pier with ANYTHING sticking out.
I most certainly *did not* stop myself and my bike from going over.
My wife and I (both right handed) had two left handed kids. Which has around a 1% chance of happening twice.
Got attacked by a robin in the morning, then attacked by a hawk 3 hours later. Weird day.
My mom gave birth to me after sudden onset of labor at 37weeks and 6 days gestation, had a c-section because I was breech, born at 9:48 AM.
I gave birth to my child after sudden onset of labor at 37weeks and 6 days gestation, had a c-section because my daughter was breech, born at 9:48 AM.
Seems statistically improbable to me but maybe not super odd.
I have not had covid despite working in Healthcare the entire pandemic...
After losing an AirPod while skiing I was able to find it the next run
Took a summer time Organic Chemistry class, one month of classes 5 days a week then a three week break then another month for the second semester. After the break I reached into the box in my closet to grab the textbook where I had hidden it and felt a sharp stab in the corner of my little finger at the cuticle of the nail bed. I was running late to class so I thought nothing of it.
I became ill with profuse sweating and nausea during the day then violently ill into the night with vomiting and diarrhea and swollen adenoids. Went to the ER the next morning and they ran every test they could. Two days later I started having trouble breathing and went to the ER again. My heart was swollen up half again it normal size, my lungs were swollen, and my kidneys too. Doctors kept me for two days with batteries of tests and after two days let me go as everything was going back to normal. Then I began s******g what appeared to be a white paste and this went on for two days. At the end of which I noticed that my tongue and the lining of my mouth was almost purple in color and I had a red streak from the tip of my little finger that during the day extended up to my bicep by that evening. Went back to the ER and the doctor said he had no clue but maybe I had been bitten by something venomous.
I then thought about the day that the symptoms started and went to that box in my closet and sure enough there was a little black spider in the box. I asked one of my professors about it and he told me the county Health Department had a entomology office not far from campus so I captured the little spider and went on over.
The doctor there told me it was just a grass spider and there was absolutely no way it could have envenomated me for 3 reasons. He said they have curved mandibles so they cant hit the human skin, they have soft mandibles so even when they manage to strike the skin the mandible will turn and not break the surface but most importantly their venom which digests the proteins that stretch between the cell walls of animals gets bound to Platelets in the human bloodstream and is almost instantly neutralized.
I showed him where the bite was as evidenced by the red streak and sure enough it was in the corner of the nail bed in very soft tissue of the cuticle where the spider could actually get a strike. He asked if I had some kind of platelets disorder. I made a quick call to the Cancer Research hospital I worked at in the evenings at that time and sure enough I had donated platelets the evening before being bitten. A process where they put you on a platelet phoresies machine and extract almost all of your platelets for donation to kids who are in need of them due to having low counts from the chemotherapy.
It was at this point that the entomologist started hyperventilating and asking all kinds of questions. He was low key freaking out. He kept repeating that this was a billion to billion to one event and he'd never heard of it before. He ended up getting me to sign some papers so he could have my medical records and published a paper on it. Fun for him but not so much for me. The white paste that I pooped for 3 days was the epithelial lining of my entire digestive tract which came out as white pasty looking individual cells. By the end of the month everything was back to normal like none of it had ever happened. Interesting side note. When some spiders inject their victims and turn them into liquid that they can then drink this venom dissolves the proteins that hold cells together by running between the cell walls. These proteins re the only things binding the cells together. Without these proteins we would be reduced to a nasty white almost liquidy paste.
Edit: as it has been asked many time in the comments I do not possess a copy or link to the paper the entomolgist wrote. Nor do I remember which journal it was in. This happened in the early nineties and may have never even been out on the internet. Also I don't know if that journal even still exists. Can't be that many people reading journals on entomology. Also he was a PhD in Entomology and not a medical doctor so it wasn't in a medical journal.
Not me, but a friend. He was a merchant mariner. Lived here in Virginia Beach. He was alwaus calling and texting, posting pics from around the world.
One time he'd been out a while, we knew he was heading to Dubai, but didn't know where he'd be after that. 4 months go by, nobody's heard from him.
His neighbor, who I was friends with, gets married and goes to Thailand for his honeymoon. He texts me one day and said you aren't gonna believe this s**t.
He said he asked a local where a good local spot to eat was that tourists wouldn't be at. Guy takes him 30 minutes from the beach, to some dive bar/restaurant with no sign, no clearly marked entrance, he said it looked so shady he was afraid he was about to be robbed and killed. He goes in, and it's a legitimate restaurant. He eats, drinks some beers, goes to the bathroom. Out walks my friend, so he took a pic and sent it to me to confirm he's ok.
Imagine taking a flight several thousands of miles away, getting away from the tourist areas and going into a local dive bar, and running into your f*****g next door neighbor you haven't seen in months. S**t's wild.
My college advisor in hs did some b******t a*s calculations on his computer, flipped the screen around and it said I have a 1.34% chance of getting in to the school I wanted.
Guess who made it in that b***h. And I got the degree now too.
While attempting to get medical treatment, the dr.’s office ran a pharmacy report on my medical history and prescriptions. My terminally ill brother, whose full name was only 2 letters different from mine and we had the same address and phone number, was on a shitload of narcotics at the time and through their search they pulled up HIS report and thought it was mine. They yelled at me and kicked me out of the office saying I was just looking for drugs. I was mortified and very upset and they wouldn’t listen to me when I said it was my brother and not me. I ended up calling the pharmacy board and they called the doctor and explained that since we had the same address, phone number and an extremely similar name, they had to search by social security number. The doctor felt horrible and gave me free treatment and now he tells that story at conferences he goes to. It was crazy. So of course, I had something happen to me that the doctors or nurses had never come across before. The doctor shared with me the tales of the conferences he spoke at and said none of the doctors there knew it was possible for data from 2 people to be included in the same pharmacy report either. I guess they do now!
A) if the doctor had been CORRECT about who this person was they still would be awful because they didn't get context and they would have kicked a terminal patient out for visiting the doctor. B) addicts still need to see a doctor for reasons beyond drug seeking while they can be frustrating you have to treat them you're a doctor C) addiction is a disease, as a doctor you're not supposed to kick someone out for having an annoying disease you're meant to offer the help they need. D) providing information on a patient to another patient due to a mistake is not any less a privacy violation. This doctor needs a mandatory training session from his oversight group minimum and a certification hearing potentially.
Dropped a glass while washing six - just six - wine glasses. It hit another glass, and shattered glass flew up out of the sink, hit me in the wrist, resulting in an arterial bleed. Home alone (house sitting). Cell service not available due to a big service fail in the area. Managed to stumble my way off the acreage to the nearest road and a driver was able to call for police and ambulance. Too close. Too damn close. I lost consciousness moments after hailing car for help. If she hadn’t stopped….
****EDIT*** FOR CLARIFICATION, TO ANSWER QUESTIONS AND TO DISPEL WACKY ASSUMPTIONS. You folks are kind. And some of you folks are wildly accusatory. Sigh. 1. Assuming I was drunk on wine, and drunk on the power of using a different wine glass for each drink I had. Lol. I don’t drink. The homeowners had had company the night before they left. Hence, the wineglasses. They wouldn’t put their “expensive, shipped home from Italy during last trip there” glasses in the dishwasher and asked me to wash them. This happened about four hours after they left to go to their summer house. 2. There was a massive cell service outage. No, it shouldn’t have happened. Read about the 2022 Rogers Communication Outage. Yeah, I should link it, but I don’t know how to do so properly. Apologies. 2(a) No, they don’t have a land line. 3. Yes, it was an arterial bleed. I knew it was bad, because I’ve watched ER (ha) and because the blood was spurting up and out all over the counter, the floor, me, the stove, the hanging pot rack, etc. 4. I’m a fainter. I quickly slumped down to the floor, having attempted a tourniquet while repeatedly calling 911. My dominant hand was injured. I’m a fainter. It was bad. I said to myself - out loud - YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE THAT DIES IN A STUPID F*****G HOUSEHOLD ACCIDENT. NOW GET UP AND WALK TO THE END OF THE PROPERTY AND HOPE A CAR GOES BY. 5. I did get up while putting pressure on my wrist and dropping saturated tea towels and adding new tea towels. The blood stain trail showed I was not steady on my feet and that I apparently tried to get in the car and drive. Blood trail continued down paved drive but also went in circles and onto the grass as I apparently fought against fainting/losing consciousness. 6. First car that drove by wouldn’t stop. I can’t say I blame them. Woman covered in blood stumbling, they may have been afraid. Car that stopped used in-car comms (OnStar? Apple? I dunno) to get help. But she wouldn’t get out of her car until I guess she was sure this wasn’t a domestic violence incident and she wasn’t putting herself in danger. She would not touch me or help to apply pressure. 7. Just as I was passing out - and if you’re a fainter, like I am, then you know when you’re going to faint and you know when you’ve reached the point where you can’t do anything to stop it - a woman from another car ran up to me and I asked her to keep pressure on - which she did. Using her bare hands and a small rag over my blood soaked tea towel. She saved my life. She didn’t have to do that, and I’m eternally grateful to her. No. I don’t know who she is. 8. Police entered the house and cleared it. Apparently believed that this was a possible domestic violence incident and thought the perp - or other victim - or that I was the perp and there was a victim of MY actions - might be in the house. They wrote that “the scene matched the story”, or something to that effect. The woman who stopped first must have told them I said I’d hurt myself washing dishes - which I’d told her in an effort to get her out of her car and applying pressure to the bleed. 9. Doctors in ER asked me what happened. Told them. I don’t know if they believed me or not, but as per normal protocol, they did ask me if I was safe at home. My license and health card showed I did not live in the area, so maybe then they believed I actually was just the house sitter. 10. I was in the hospital for about 6-8 hours. Went back to the acreage. Went to bed. Slept for about 12 hours. Cleaned the blood and glass up the next day. It was bad. Very bad. 11. I no longer use glass containers. I use only plastic cups. I’m still a non-drinker. I still house sit. I do not hand wash glasses. Ever. Under any circumstances. And when hearing a glass break I start to cry. Pathetic, but true. 12. I suggested to the homeowners that they get a landline. They did not. 13. From time to time, I still have some discomfort in my wrist. Also some numbness. I just rest it for a day or two and then it’s fine. Yes, I have a scar. Not very noticeable. 14. I had a second arterial bleed in the hospital when the resident stitching me up nicked my artery as they tried to do the repair. S**t happens. At least I was in the hospital. 15. The ER docs were absolutely amazed that I’d walked to the end of the property and gotten help all by myself. One doctor said, YOU saved yourself. Any lingering doubt was likely cleared up by police report of scene and blood trail. 16. Did this change my outlook on life? Yes and no. I’m less fearful in many ways, and more inclined to say yes to new experiences and adventures. I have developed a deep rooted fear of glassware. No joke. I won’t wash glassware. I was already aware of the random nature of life - and death - as my parents died when I was young , and I’ve had other random s**t happen to me. So. I get it. Life is random. Life is fragile. In the face of so much bad luck, I’ve been lucky. I’m still here. Still house sitting. Take care, friends. And be careful washing those damn glasses. (Edited for brevity and to satisfy someone’s unquenchable thirst for paragraphs.)
I WISH it was edited for brevity and to satisfy my unquenchable thirst for paragraphs. Jesus Christ.
I underwent a surgical procedure called a stapectomy to improve the significant hearing loss in my GOOD ear. Instead, I ended up completely deaf. My surgical ENT said this has only happened to 5 patients IN THE US. (He was doing research to try to help me afterwards.) I don't know how true it is, but hey, lucky me.
I’m so very, very sorry for your hearing loss. I lost hearing in my left ear due to surgery to a benign inner ear tumor called an acoustic neuroma. (My hearing tests show DEAD for the left ear.) Odds of getting an Acoustic Neuroma are incredibly slim. Then one of my best friends had one removed 6 months after me. And two other friends also had them removed a year later! 😳 My right ear is now losing hearing due to a family genes. My “good” ear hears at a moderate to severe hearing loss. I protect it like crazy!
Nearly getting killed by the same reckless/drunk driver twice in three years. The first time in 2001, I turned right. Before I completed the turn a Pontiac Sunfire zipped by going 100-110 mph.
The second near death was in the driveway in 2004. I was supposed to pick up my brother from work. This time I didn't. Instead, I hear a noise that could be heard a block away. The drunk driver smashed my car and turned it around 180 degrees. His BAC was 0.20. He tried running away and the neighbor tackled him. There happened to be a police officer nearby, too. Life comes at you fast.
I played softball with the kid when I was 11 years old. Drunk drivers don't want their license.
I'll never understand why or how the law allows so many drunk drivers to escape fitting punishment. Like having a drunk driver smash into them or their loved ones?
I was "swimming" about 20 yards away from shore where it is about 15 feet deep in lake Erie (water is a little cloudy) with my glasses on so I can see. A wave runner rushes past and the wake knocks off my glasses. I make a few dives. Try and mark my location with landmarks. Swim to shore, explain what happened and ask people if they have a mask or goggles I can borrow. Someone does loan me their goggles. I swim out and dive about 20 times. I decide I am going to take two more dives then end it and drive home to Chicago without being able to see. I go down and a bass swims under me. I decide to follow it since I had never been so close to one other than fishing. It swam over my glasses. I shoot to the surface with my glasses in my hand. The beach erupts in cheers - apparently the word got out. I was ELATED and stayed to camp and party with my friends (mostly old and a few new).
We have a narrowboat which has side doors (for ventilation) One time in a lock, someone opened the paddles rather quickly, and one of the doors came off its hinges and sank. Several days later, on the way back, my husband decided to try magnet fishing for the door, in the lock. Took about 10 minutes, but he got it back!
My twin sister and I hit the same answer to “rock, paper, scissors” 14 times in a row. My husband thought we were cheating haha! Gotta love the power of twins!
I was contacted by the FBI in regards to a criminal on the most wanted list. There were so many coincidences in our lives that the agents thought that I had to know where he was. They grilled me for a couple of hours trying to get information, but I had never heard of the guy. Incredible since: We lived two streets apart as kids, attended the same elementary, middle, and high schools, and were members of the same church. (He was 3 years older than me so we never met at school, and his family attended church during a different time slot). We both studied French at the same university. As language tutors, we worked in the same office and had the same boss and general phone number. (The age difference kept us from ever meeting, and he switched from French to Business before I got there). We both did a church missionary service in the same part of France, and even lived at the same address twice. (Our time in France never overlapped, and those mission apartments changed tenants every couple of months). When we both lived in Salt Lake, we lived in the same (large) apartment complex. He robbed an armored car outside of a movie theater on a Monday morning, getting away with a lot of cash and murdering the driver. I was working the overnight shift at a grocery store (from Sunday night to Monday morning) on that exact morning. The theater and the grocery store shared a parking lot. Every 6 months or so, the FBI checks in with me.
Had a vasectomy.
It was only 2 hours before it all went wrong, but I was following all the post-procedure stuff: wear a jock strap, gentle icing, no lifting, no exercise, plenty of rest, etc.
I was actually quite excited to sit in bed for a few days and find a show to binge, when s**t started going south.
Was laying in bed and had been feeling a weird twinge/pulling sensation for a bit, and finally put the tablet down to get a look down my shorts. The doctor said there might be swelling, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what I saw. My ball sack had increased in size to about an orange and my lower abdomen was swelling as well. There was a black/blue bruise that was spreading down my leg and up into the abdomen.
Started to google stuff and had my wife call the doctor. She finally got a hold of the night attendant, and he told her it was normal.
I tried to relax and get my mind off of things… but I was a bit anxious, to say the least. I checked again about an hour later… and my balls had grown to the size of a small cantaloupe.
They had swelled up so big, that my penis had been entirely engulfed—except for the foreskin—by the mass of sack around it.
My junk now looked like a furry, zombified Q-bert.
I had never had a panic attack before, but my brain decided that *now* would be a good time to introduce that to my repertoire. My arm went numb, the world was spinning, I was struck by an impending sense of doom and my heart felt like it was going to beat through my chest. Thinking I was currently well along in the process of dying, I had my wife call 911.
By the time EMS got there I felt much better (Opiates), and I’m not Bill Gates, so I told them my wife would take me to the hospital.
By this time I had to pee, and all I can say about that is it’s quite an experience to have to fish your penis shaft out of your painful, grossly swollen ballsack and *just* barely get enough of the tip out to spray urine everywhere like an epileptic with a super soaker.
Arrived at the ER and they confirmed that yes… my “s**t was f****d up.” Out of a bit of horror and pity, they gave me some morphine in my IV right after the sonogram.
In the chaos, however, I neglected to inform them I had just taken some opiate pain meds. (Not to mention I had doubled the dose considering my condition).
I didn’t OD or anything, but there was lots of puking and feeling like I was falling into myself and other fun stuff I’d rather not endure again.
Had to wait a bit for surgery, so they gave me some antibiotics beforehand to get that round of meds started.
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that I was allergic to Sulfa antibiotics. Nothing happened that night (thankfully) but for whatever reason Sulfas give me a male yeast infection.
So, I got to convalesce with a tube still draining blood and fluid out of my left nut, all the while my penis was covered in slime and sores.
The doctor said that the possibility of the initial complications *alone* was somewhere in the range of 0.001%, let alone the rest of that f*****g nightmare.
Still, at least it supplanted “live moth in my ear canal” as the #1 worst physical experience I’ve had to endure thus far in life.
Well that was impressively descriptive. I did not enjoy the pictures in my head...
I saw an ad on a Pepsi case at a grocery store for a text to win contest to see Beyoncé in concert. I figured why not, and sent a text and was entered. A few weeks later I got a text back from the same number that told me I won the grand prize! I ended up winning 2 tickets to Beyoncé’s Mrs Carter World Tour in Brooklyn and $500 on a Visa gift card. Used the $500 for some bus tickets and a hotel down the street from Barclays. The seats were awesome and it is something I’ll never forget!
I entered a contest once hoping to win the 3rd place prize of some headphones. I never entertained winning first prize. Much to my delighted shock I won the $10,000 grand prize. I still have the email they sent me.
My son used the head rest to break a window to pull 3 children out of cars in two different accidents, both driven by women in (6 children in total) exactly 3 months apart. The first accident occurred one day after he filmed “stop the bleed” training available through a local hospital. The first accident caused by speed and the SUV flipped on its roof right in front of him and he also got the Mom out. The second one caused by a man who fell asleep coming home from third shift and crossed a double yellow and hit a woman head on taking her 3 kids to school. The woman needed the jaws of life to be extracted and after getting her kids out my son checked the male driver for trauma/bleeding and held his hand until EMTs could get there. The man was life flighted to the hospital. While my son was tending to him the local fire department arrived and took off the side view mirror of my son’s car that was off the road. :/ My son is convinced that he will have to help others out of their cars in more accidents. I keep telling him that this is not common for a civilian. Super thankful he saw the training on what to do.
TLDR: My son broke windows with a headrest and pulled a total of 6 children and an adult out of cars in 2 separate accidents exactly 3 months apart. The first accident occurred one day after he filmed “Stop the Bleed” training at a local hospital.
All of the people that crashed were extremely lucky that this man's son was there and trained.
I have 2.
1) My car, 2 days after we bought it, was shot while I was driving in to work. It happened in a hotel parking lot in a safe neighborhood at like 6am.
Car and I both survived, though cops said a centimeter in and direction would have changed those results.
2) I safely stole back a waist pack from a bear.
DO NOT DO WHAT I DID! It is not safe!
In summary, camping in the white mountains and a yearling has been checking out our camp. Friends all go to the bathroom, one friend leaves her waist pack with her insulin and glucose meter in her tent. Bear breaks into her tent, runs off with the pack. I follow the bear. I politely ask the bear to drop the bag. We (the bear and I) both are surprised because the bear listens. I then ask if I can trade the pack for a stick. I use the stick to distract the bear and grab the pack. The bear sits and examines the stick and VERY LUCKY NOT TO BE DEAD me takes the pack and backs away slowly. I give my friend her slightly chewed pack with her meds so we can avoid going to the hospital. Then we find out my friend is highly allergic to black bear spit. She ends up in the ER anyway.
What are the odds of being allergic to the saliva of a black bear? And how many people are allergic to it but will never know?
Been struck by lightning 3 times.
Shocking, I know.
When I was a teenager I picked up a hitchhiker and then a few years later the same guy picked me up when I was walking after I ran out of gas. Never saw him before or after those two occasions.
My friend had two sets of monochorionic-monoamniotic twins--the rarest kind of twins--in back-to-back pregnancies. Identical twins that share the same amniotic sac and same placenta. "Mono-Mono" or "MoMo" twins happen in about 1% of identical twin pregnancies, and less than 0.1% of all pregnancies.
I was almost murdered in a case of mistaken identity.
A guy came chasing after my car on the highway, waving his gun out the window. He eventually got in front of me, blocking my car, and stopped his car and got out. He came right up to my Window, pointed the gun right at my head, looked me in the eyes and said "Sorry. Wrong chick", then got back in his car and drove away.
I still have no idea who he was or who the "right chick" was.
Went to a county fair and found a season pass on the ground with my name on it. 4 people in my area with the same name and I know 2 if them. What are the odds of that?
Years back, my best friend and I went swimming at a lake. He was so excited to get in the water that he left his phone and wallet in his pocket and lost both. It sucked, the lake gets deep quickly and is very muddy. We looked and looked, but water was too deep and it gets scary deep in lakes!
Anywho, I’d say a month-ish went by, and we were swimming at the lake again, and being the smart a*s friend I am, I dove down to find some lake trash and tell him I found his wallet, but it’s like a soda can or something. (Har har har bad joke, but I’m a bad friend)
Instead, what happened went like:
Me: bobbing around looking for stuff with my toes along the bottom of the lake (it’s pretty deep).
I touch something, and my blood runs cold cause it’s super scary to touch things in water. But this joke will happen, no matter how lame.
I grab it with my long toes, a neat skill I have. Very dexterous.
I hand the trash from my toes to my hand, and swim up for air, holding the trash above me so that it dramatically surfaces first.
As my ears emerge from the water, I hear my friend say “are you f*****g with me?” I look in my hand overhead and I am unbeknownst to myself triumphantly holding up my friends lost wallet.
It was goddamn uncanny.
I'm more concerned about the line 'I grab it with my long toes, a neat skill I have. Very dexterous.'
Hit by lightning. Sort of .. indirectly. Lightning hit a tree near the wellhead while I was doing dishes. Exploded the tree, fried the well and gave me a jolt that made my metal fillings so hot they burned my tongue. Other than that, I was fine.
I remember a few times I have had the most bizarre sense that the running water from my house's taps had electricity in it and I remember telling it to my parents and how bizarre it sounded but then my dad checked the pipes and wires and I think found that one of the electricity wires was touching the water pipe or something. Something like that. Almost got electrocuted when I was a handling a metal pot (I was washing the dishes) and I had it in my left hand and I reached out with my right hand to open the tap and washed my hands under the water and feeling electric shocks jolting through me. Thought I was going to die.
I got bit by a ground hog. I’ve never researched the odds of getting bit buy a ground hog but it’s gotta be pretty low, right?
Having the combination of red hair and blue eyes; the rarest combination in the world, at just a 0.17% chance.
I think a rarer combo would be naturally blue hair and red eyes.
Had my tonsils out, twice because they grew back. Let me tell you that throwing up blood that runs down the back of your throat after surgery was an exorcist level event. I’m glad the pain pills were huge that I had to break up into smaller jagged bits.
I was born on my parents' first anniversary. Both my parents have the same birthday (same day, same year). My husband and I have birthdays a day apart from each other.
I accidentally caught a guitar pick at a My Chemical Romance concert 12 years ago. I was standing there and had my hand at my side with my fingers kinda half way to a fist. I felt something hit my hand, looked down and it was just there. It was at the amphitheater in Bonner Springs KS so not a small crowd either
I accidentally caught a drum stick (Sting concert, in a stadium so there were a million people there). Well, actually it hit me on the head as I wasn't paying attention 😆 I still have it!
High school drop-out with a Masters Degree. Read somewhere duting my career that 1/2 of 1% of high school drop-outs get an Associates Degree.
I was hit in a crosswalk 2x as a pedestrian by the same person. The incidents were 4 years apart and in different states.
When I turned 23 I met my 2 biological half brothers. The showed me a photo of them with our father and in it they’re all smiling to show how the three of them are all missing a front upper middle tooth. When I was 7 I lost my upper middle front tooth, making it all four of us.
I won over $1,200 on a $2 wager in horseracing and then less than a week later I won over $1,600 on a $6 wager. The first was a pick 5, meaning I had to pick the winner of 5 consecutive races and the second was a pick 4 which is similar, but only 4 races.
And I hope that your luck didn't run out and that you kept that money....
My mom is 14 years older than her sister.
Her sister (my aunt) is 14 years older than me.
I am 14 years older than my niece (daughter of said aunt).
My niece is 14 years older than my daughter.
(Eta- COUSIN not niece 🤦🏼♀️)
Got caught in a small tornado in southern California. I was about 12 years old and skateboarding in the parking lot at my Dad's work. I remember stopping for a second and noticing that all noise around me had completely stopped. No great way to describe it other than all of the normal sounds (breeze, birds, background noise) had fallen flat. It's not that noise disappeared, rather it was like the air couldn't carry sounds normally.
I looked up and the sky was a yellow color, all of the overcast clouds looked as though the sun was setting even though it was in the middle of the day. Right after I noticed the color, I also saw several large pieces of light trash circling in the air above me (trash bags, chunks of cardboard, etc). Still, no noise.
Then, across the wash (a cemented channel that feeds into the LA river), a large piece of corrugated roofing loudly ripped itself off of a porch in the adjacent trailer park and joined the other trash circling in the sky. That was when I booked it back across the parking lot and back into the shop bay at Dad's work.
The chunk of roofing ended up on my side of the wash. A few of the owners in adjacent bays came out to see, but don't think they saw it during its short flight. It was all said and done in probably less than thirty seconds, so I doubt it was newsworthy.
Maybe not much to someone living in the Midwest, but very unusual to happen to anyone in the Los Angeles area.
Correctly guessed all the numbers of the California Lottery 20 years ago upon arriving in my hotel room and turning on the TV at the drawing time.
I keep running into the same ex every few years, no matter where I go on the planet (30+ years). We have =NOT= stayed in touch.
i had my car stolen from work and caught the theif myself the next day.
I had my golf clubs stolen from my car. They don't normally live in the car, but I was supposed to go to the driving range with a friend from work and he couldn't go at the last minute and so we said we'd go the next evening instead, so I left my clubs in my car overnight. That was the night my car got broken into. Didn't initially realise they were missing as I had forgotten putting them in there, just the stereo had gone. Our building security guard found my golf clubs the next day and I got them back. Guess the thief didn't want to be seen lugging a heavy bag of clubs around the city centre many miles from the nearest golf course! Didn't get the stereo back though, but he did me a favour, as it was the awful standard one in a cheap car, and I was able to put a new one in with a removeable faceplate.
Moved from Ohio to Texas back in 2006 to be with my now wife. Was interviewing for my first career job, and one of the interviewers was not only from Ohio, she graduated from my university, AND she went to the same high school as both of my parents (two hours away from that university, so not like they were in the same place) just a couple of years before them.
I was on a train that derailed.
We were making dinner once and there was a large knife on the counter with part of the handle hanging over the edge. My ex put his hand down on the handle, it flew up in the air, flipped and landed pointy side down, directly in my big toe.
This is the dumbest story ever but the one time in my entire life that someone asked me if I wanted to buy a pair of shoes at work is the day (a few hours later) that the sole of my shoe came off.
So yeah, I bought the shoes.
Coworkers husband bought wrong size shoes and not sure why they couldn’t return them.
1. Lost a job to the RK riots because the building literally burned down.
2. Was on a Delta Shuttle to NYC, Tuesday morning September 11th at 830am.
3. I could go on but those two are highlights.
I've been pooped on by a bird. Getting pooped on by a bird has roughly a chance of 1 in 5 million. HOWEVER... I think the chances of WHERE I was pooped on make the probability ratio even larger. See... I had a seagull poop and the poop landed PERFECTLY on the breast pocket of the polo shirt I was wearing that day. I have refused to eat at the Ivar's on the Seattle waterfront for decades now.
Edit: guys, I'm just going by what I googled. I was more going to the part of where the poop landed that was more of the insane odds bit.
Okay but non seattlites, go to Ivars when ur visiting here. You can chuck French fries at seagulls and they catch them midair, it's hilarious. They also have pretty good oysters
I've accidentally walked into a riot on 3 separate occasions in my life.
I was in my jeep, pulled over on a Saturday afternoon to check a text message. Two guys pulled up beside me and asked if I knew where they could buy some Jeep parts as pick-a-part yard was closed. I asked what they needed. "A brake rotor for a 96 Grand Cherokee." I reached into the passenger floorboard and picked up a brake rotor for a 96 Grand Cherokee, handed it out the window, smiled and drove away.
we call my dad papa doolittle because he has this way with animals. it's not just domestic ones like cats and dogs but wildlife. it is perfectly normal to look out the window and see deer in the yard while he is gardening. several times pregnant deer hung out there until they left to give birth and then returned with their babies. the best sight was seeing him in the garden or on the porch chair with hummingbirds around or sitting on him. and the squirrels adore him. the only trait of this that i got is that if an animal is hurt or in need it usually shows up at my door & sometimes literally in my house. am currently rehabing a bird for release that was hurt in a recent wind storm.
My birth was a pretty unlikely event given that I was born with ambiguous genitals (around 1 in 4500). The fact that I still have them 42 years later is more unlikely still since the policy then and now was "make it look normal at any cost".
At my job, I spotted an old book that was going to a used book sale. It had the old WW2 army air corps symbol. It was a 1942 yearbook from a cadet school in Deming New Mexico and my father's class picture was in it.
Two customers. One at my counter and one on the phone. Both looking for the same obscure part for the exact same year, make and model vehicle.
i bought 3 lottery scratch cards won £2 on one bought another won £6 on that one bought one more then won £100 lucky me
In Hungary, there is a unique bank deposit, on which you do not earn interest, but you can win cars with your account number. My FIL won 3 (very cheap) cars and his father also won one. The chances are just slightly better than in a lottery game.
I can do you one better. The baby girl I gave up for adoption has the same birthmark as her adoptive mom. I got to meet my birth daughter because of her mom.
Load More Replies...
I once caught a fish with an auger. When you cut the holes for ice fishing you bob the auger up and down a few times to get the slush out of the hole. I was 5 or 6 at the time so naturally I was a bit over enthusiastic about this. The suction pulled a perch out of the hole.
I've gotten 3 different eye infections in my life, all rare. One was so rare the optometrist (who worked 20+ years) called the hospital because they'd never seen it, and they called someone because they didn't get it. I think I was the first case to happen in Britain, my twin was the second when she got the same condition 1.5 years later. My mum has been stopped 3 times while on holiday by border control because they thought she was a terrorist. i.e. she was in the same city and street at the same time as the attack and happens to have the same vehicle that they use. Doesn't make it better than 2/3 times she was seen carrying a large ham over her shoulder that looked like a machine gun on camera because of bad lighting. She later sold the vehicle. My brother was once carsick in the motorhome, and the second he put his head back in after being sick the wing mirror was smashed off and came flying into the window after a van crashed into it. A second later, he'd been badly hurt.
Lightning has struck my house 4 times, and they were 4 completely different houses
My husband won $30,000 dollars after four spins on a penny slots in Las Vegas
I have 2. First, my dad, my mom, my brother, one of my sisters, and both of my children are left-handed. My other sister, the father of my kids, and I are
Right-handed.2nd, we live in a small southern town. My dad used to be a marine biologist in Florida. My mom worked in a doctor's office. My mom's boss went on a cruise to Norway. He and his wife started talking with another couple on the ship at supper one night. The couple asked where they were from. Boss replied it was a small town about 50 miles from a bigger city. Guy looks surprised and asked if, by chance, he knew my dad (this man used to be my dad's coworker in Florida, and they were still friends). Boss answered yes and then said, "His wife works for me." Halfway around the world and 2 couples meet on a cruise ship that just happen to know my parents who live in a small, obscure little town.
Load More Replies...
When we moved to Texas, I went to see my new primary care doctor. This doctor was not only from the same hometown as I was, he went to the same high school as I did. He was much younger than me and it turned out he and my daughter were in some of the same classes together.
A few years after our first child, we decided to have another. Despite becoming pregnant the first time, after just 3 months of dating and not on purpose, we tried for our second for a year and a half with no success. Then finally success. 4 months in I started to spot, there was no sign of a heartbeat. We were devastated. I had a D&E on the same day my sil had her baby shower and at my house. My mil refused to change the location. Whatever. After examining the fetus, we were called into the obgyn. Apparently, two sperm got into the egg at the same time, causing 1/3 extra chromosomes, which only happens in 1% of all conceptions. I call it my womb anomaly. We decided then and there that one child was enough and we weren’t going through any of that again. Which turned out to be a great decision, because we have such an awesome and successful adult son, who never fails to give great hugs and say he loves us.
One time driving cross country, at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, I saw my fathers name, first & last with his new wife’s name inside a heart, carved into a sign. I hadn’t seen or talked to him since I was young… small world.
Well ig me getting a gf. I met a person who I'll call "A". A and I became good friends slowly- can't remember how to be honest but they added me to a gc with their best friend "B" who I also become friends with. We started to vent to each other and maybe give advice and they add me to another group chat with "C" and we were very close for a while. 1 of the most verbally affectionate friends I had (no, not like that). By the way he lives at another part of the country so idk how B met C. Anyways while C and I were close he added "D" to the group chat as he met her on Xbox... Anyways D and I start talking and r really chill with each other. I'm aromantic of course so I've never been in romantic love.. but she got a crush on me. Very fortunately I developed feelings for her but not exactly romantic. I'm not sure what still but I honestly don't care. All I need to know is I love her. Anyway I'm close to everyone except C and my gf and my anniversary is in a few days even if we're in 2...
Different countries. Personally I'm very happy and hope she feels the same but I'm a paranoid shít. Lol anyway she's helped me so much with my self esteem and yk I hope I help her every day because she's really struggling... Love her so so much and ik she's really trying her best to get better and I'm so proud of her for that
Load More Replies... Husbands family: grandma died on Christmas, mom died on Mother's Day, aunt died 4 th of July
If I were a more paranoid Agatha Christie reader, I would be suspicious but as I'm not, I'll just say holidays suck at your house
Load More Replies... the best I have is that my wedding took place in the same year as my sister's 25th wedding anniversary (she's 21 years older than me and married relatively young) and my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. And we're all still together too.
Hello Constantly Jon, I bet you were a surprise. I once knew a young man who was two years younger than his nephew.
Load More Replies...
I've found 10 4-leaf clovers in my life, and 9 of them were at one specific summer camp
Not sure how rare/common this is but I just had Covid, with ZERO symptoms. The only reason we even figured out we had it was because my parents both got it and wanted to test my brother and I just to be safe. So yeah, no coughing, no stuffed nose, no lose of taste or smell, I felt completely fine. Nothing like I had when I’d gotten it the year before
My mum and dad emigrated to Australia from the UK in the early 1970's, they were part of what was called the £10 Poms scheme. My parents are from the North West of England which has a distinctive accent which my dad never lost when we were out there. I was a toddler when we went travelling around Australia and we stopped at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere when I decided to run off. Sat outside what what appeared to be an old indigenous man with a hat pulled down and dozing in the sun. My mum and sister went into the shop to get supplies and my dad went after me.
He yelled 'Come back here you little bugger!' (It was the 1970's, different time) The older guy sat outside the shop looked up and with an accent identical to my dad's said 'Eeh I know where tha's is from lad!' Turns out this gentleman was a white guy who just spent so much time in the sun he was brown like the indigenous population. He'd come over after WW2 and stayed. He was from the same town my dad was from and they had people they knew in common.
Load More Replies...
So I got pooped on by a bird twice in my life exactly 6 years apart I even think It was the same day too. Btw I was 6 and 12.
Not as spectacular as the post here. But I live 4 hours from my hometown and bought a old secondhand book on the Internet. It had an inscription on the first page, to "John Doe" Christmas 1922. I got a book that our towns big celebrity got from his parents on his 20th birthday! I had to call my mum and tell her. It was so freaking random and the book was filled with underlined words and notes. It almost feels like I should give it to a museum or something. (Not that one exist for him, but still)
I dislocated my ankle about 20 years ago and was told by a friend who was an x-ray tech that it’s the hardest ball and socket joint in the body to dislocate
Anyone else had their car hit by a rocket the day after buying it? and I mean a real rocket not a 4th of July one. I've only entered one promotional lottery in my life and won, an all expenses paid fortnight trip for four from Australia to New York. I'm a member of "Unique!", a worldwide organisation of people with unique genetic disorders. I also claim to be the recipient of the largest ever collection of misdirected mail, the mail was supposed to go the the USA and ended up in Australia. Also just missed by a falling aircraft. Coincidences aren't all that rare.
A rocket like a missile or a rocket like a space ship?
Load More Replies... I was in my jeep, pulled over on a Saturday afternoon to check a text message. Two guys pulled up beside me and asked if I knew where they could buy some Jeep parts as pick-a-part yard was closed. I asked what they needed. "A brake rotor for a 96 Grand Cherokee." I reached into the passenger floorboard and picked up a brake rotor for a 96 Grand Cherokee, handed it out the window, smiled and drove away.
we call my dad papa doolittle because he has this way with animals. it's not just domestic ones like cats and dogs but wildlife. it is perfectly normal to look out the window and see deer in the yard while he is gardening. several times pregnant deer hung out there until they left to give birth and then returned with their babies. the best sight was seeing him in the garden or on the porch chair with hummingbirds around or sitting on him. and the squirrels adore him. the only trait of this that i got is that if an animal is hurt or in need it usually shows up at my door & sometimes literally in my house. am currently rehabing a bird for release that was hurt in a recent wind storm.
My birth was a pretty unlikely event given that I was born with ambiguous genitals (around 1 in 4500). The fact that I still have them 42 years later is more unlikely still since the policy then and now was "make it look normal at any cost".
At my job, I spotted an old book that was going to a used book sale. It had the old WW2 army air corps symbol. It was a 1942 yearbook from a cadet school in Deming New Mexico and my father's class picture was in it.
Two customers. One at my counter and one on the phone. Both looking for the same obscure part for the exact same year, make and model vehicle.
i bought 3 lottery scratch cards won £2 on one bought another won £6 on that one bought one more then won £100 lucky me
In Hungary, there is a unique bank deposit, on which you do not earn interest, but you can win cars with your account number. My FIL won 3 (very cheap) cars and his father also won one. The chances are just slightly better than in a lottery game.
I can do you one better. The baby girl I gave up for adoption has the same birthmark as her adoptive mom. I got to meet my birth daughter because of her mom.
Load More Replies... I once caught a fish with an auger. When you cut the holes for ice fishing you bob the auger up and down a few times to get the slush out of the hole. I was 5 or 6 at the time so naturally I was a bit over enthusiastic about this. The suction pulled a perch out of the hole.
I've gotten 3 different eye infections in my life, all rare. One was so rare the optometrist (who worked 20+ years) called the hospital because they'd never seen it, and they called someone because they didn't get it. I think I was the first case to happen in Britain, my twin was the second when she got the same condition 1.5 years later. My mum has been stopped 3 times while on holiday by border control because they thought she was a terrorist. i.e. she was in the same city and street at the same time as the attack and happens to have the same vehicle that they use. Doesn't make it better than 2/3 times she was seen carrying a large ham over her shoulder that looked like a machine gun on camera because of bad lighting. She later sold the vehicle. My brother was once carsick in the motorhome, and the second he put his head back in after being sick the wing mirror was smashed off and came flying into the window after a van crashed into it. A second later, he'd been badly hurt.
Lightning has struck my house 4 times, and they were 4 completely different houses
My husband won $30,000 dollars after four spins on a penny slots in Las Vegas
I have 2. First, my dad, my mom, my brother, one of my sisters, and both of my children are left-handed. My other sister, the father of my kids, and I are
Right-handed.2nd, we live in a small southern town. My dad used to be a marine biologist in Florida. My mom worked in a doctor's office. My mom's boss went on a cruise to Norway. He and his wife started talking with another couple on the ship at supper one night. The couple asked where they were from. Boss replied it was a small town about 50 miles from a bigger city. Guy looks surprised and asked if, by chance, he knew my dad (this man used to be my dad's coworker in Florida, and they were still friends). Boss answered yes and then said, "His wife works for me." Halfway around the world and 2 couples meet on a cruise ship that just happen to know my parents who live in a small, obscure little town.
Load More Replies... When we moved to Texas, I went to see my new primary care doctor. This doctor was not only from the same hometown as I was, he went to the same high school as I did. He was much younger than me and it turned out he and my daughter were in some of the same classes together.
A few years after our first child, we decided to have another. Despite becoming pregnant the first time, after just 3 months of dating and not on purpose, we tried for our second for a year and a half with no success. Then finally success. 4 months in I started to spot, there was no sign of a heartbeat. We were devastated. I had a D&E on the same day my sil had her baby shower and at my house. My mil refused to change the location. Whatever. After examining the fetus, we were called into the obgyn. Apparently, two sperm got into the egg at the same time, causing 1/3 extra chromosomes, which only happens in 1% of all conceptions. I call it my womb anomaly. We decided then and there that one child was enough and we weren’t going through any of that again. Which turned out to be a great decision, because we have such an awesome and successful adult son, who never fails to give great hugs and say he loves us.
One time driving cross country, at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, I saw my fathers name, first & last with his new wife’s name inside a heart, carved into a sign. I hadn’t seen or talked to him since I was young… small world.
Well ig me getting a gf. I met a person who I'll call "A". A and I became good friends slowly- can't remember how to be honest but they added me to a gc with their best friend "B" who I also become friends with. We started to vent to each other and maybe give advice and they add me to another group chat with "C" and we were very close for a while. 1 of the most verbally affectionate friends I had (no, not like that). By the way he lives at another part of the country so idk how B met C. Anyways while C and I were close he added "D" to the group chat as he met her on Xbox... Anyways D and I start talking and r really chill with each other. I'm aromantic of course so I've never been in romantic love.. but she got a crush on me. Very fortunately I developed feelings for her but not exactly romantic. I'm not sure what still but I honestly don't care. All I need to know is I love her. Anyway I'm close to everyone except C and my gf and my anniversary is in a few days even if we're in 2...
Different countries. Personally I'm very happy and hope she feels the same but I'm a paranoid shít. Lol anyway she's helped me so much with my self esteem and yk I hope I help her every day because she's really struggling... Love her so so much and ik she's really trying her best to get better and I'm so proud of her for that
Load More Replies... Husbands family: grandma died on Christmas, mom died on Mother's Day, aunt died 4 th of July
If I were a more paranoid Agatha Christie reader, I would be suspicious but as I'm not, I'll just say holidays suck at your house
Load More Replies... the best I have is that my wedding took place in the same year as my sister's 25th wedding anniversary (she's 21 years older than me and married relatively young) and my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. And we're all still together too.
Hello Constantly Jon, I bet you were a surprise. I once knew a young man who was two years younger than his nephew.
Load More Replies... I've found 10 4-leaf clovers in my life, and 9 of them were at one specific summer camp
Not sure how rare/common this is but I just had Covid, with ZERO symptoms. The only reason we even figured out we had it was because my parents both got it and wanted to test my brother and I just to be safe. So yeah, no coughing, no stuffed nose, no lose of taste or smell, I felt completely fine. Nothing like I had when I’d gotten it the year before
My mum and dad emigrated to Australia from the UK in the early 1970's, they were part of what was called the £10 Poms scheme. My parents are from the North West of England which has a distinctive accent which my dad never lost when we were out there. I was a toddler when we went travelling around Australia and we stopped at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere when I decided to run off. Sat outside what what appeared to be an old indigenous man with a hat pulled down and dozing in the sun. My mum and sister went into the shop to get supplies and my dad went after me.
He yelled 'Come back here you little bugger!' (It was the 1970's, different time) The older guy sat outside the shop looked up and with an accent identical to my dad's said 'Eeh I know where tha's is from lad!' Turns out this gentleman was a white guy who just spent so much time in the sun he was brown like the indigenous population. He'd come over after WW2 and stayed. He was from the same town my dad was from and they had people they knew in common.
Load More Replies... So I got pooped on by a bird twice in my life exactly 6 years apart I even think It was the same day too. Btw I was 6 and 12.
Not as spectacular as the post here. But I live 4 hours from my hometown and bought a old secondhand book on the Internet. It had an inscription on the first page, to "John Doe" Christmas 1922. I got a book that our towns big celebrity got from his parents on his 20th birthday! I had to call my mum and tell her. It was so freaking random and the book was filled with underlined words and notes. It almost feels like I should give it to a museum or something. (Not that one exist for him, but still)
I dislocated my ankle about 20 years ago and was told by a friend who was an x-ray tech that it’s the hardest ball and socket joint in the body to dislocate
Anyone else had their car hit by a rocket the day after buying it? and I mean a real rocket not a 4th of July one. I've only entered one promotional lottery in my life and won, an all expenses paid fortnight trip for four from Australia to New York. I'm a member of "Unique!", a worldwide organisation of people with unique genetic disorders. I also claim to be the recipient of the largest ever collection of misdirected mail, the mail was supposed to go the the USA and ended up in Australia. Also just missed by a falling aircraft. Coincidences aren't all that rare.
A rocket like a missile or a rocket like a space ship?
Load More Replies...