Life is full of surprises, both good and bad. Whether or not you believe that everything happens for a reason, there's no denying that chance encounters and situations are sometimes just, well, odd. Just take it from these people, who recently shared stories about the biggest coincidences they have ever experienced.

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60. Number One Fan

We gave my uncle a coffee table book commemorating an NFL team for his birthday. He immediately opened it to the center spread, a panoramic shot of the fans in the stadium. Unbeknownst to any of us beforehand, right in the center of the page was him in the stands.

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59. Get Your Money's Worth

I was getting close to my due date and sent in my resignation to my manager and HR. Losing my salary was going to put us in a financial mess. The very minute I sent the email, my husband received one from a company he'd interviewed with six months prior, with a job offer out of the blue.

The kicker is that his new salary was the exact amount that our two jobs added up to.

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58. Totally Unrelated

My dad worked in politics in DC. When I was about 6, our family rented out our basement to a longtime coworker/friend of his. She was just out of college (I think she had been an intern) so we gave her a fair rental price for what was a pretty nice apartment somewhat close to Capitol Hill in DC. She lived there for two years or so, then moved out to better digs. She still was around though, both her and my dad being involved in the same political issues and stuff.

A couple of years later my dad is at a family wedding, and he sees her there. Turns out they were second cousins by marriage. It took like five years to figure this out.

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57. His Final Moments

Years back my grandfather had a stroke and died about a month later. I flipped a coin toss with my brother and ended up the designated driver to help my parents drive the 15 hour trip to Florida. There was a funeral, a burial, and brief goodbyes. Such is life.

Afterward, I got a call from some old family friends who lived about 50 miles away inviting me to spend a couple of days with them at their beach house. I spent the night talking with their daughter and then after about four hours of sleep their son, who was the same age I was, showed up and decided I had to get out and spend some quality time with him on the beach.

We had been out for about two hours when he runs into an old girlfriend and some of her friends. We spend the afternoon with them swimming, and then make plans to meet them that night at a beach bar. I end up spending half the night talking with one of the women, just casual stuff.

She ends up having to take off to work, so I walk her out to her car around two in the morning. I asked her what sort of job she had. She was an occupational therapist, and at that point (lack of sleep) I had no idea what that meant, so I asked her what that involved. "I work with people who have had severe injuries, strokes and such."

"Oh, my grandfather had a stroke. He died a couple of days ago." "What was his name?" I told her. She gave me an odd look and then hugged me. "I was with him when he died." We sat for a while on the beach and she told me about my grandfather's last days, then she had to leave for work. Such is life.

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56. Coming To America

In the early nineteen-hundreds, my great grandfather was in Poland and was like, "This suuuuucks." So he stowed away in a boat to America. The problem is, though, he was caught somewhere along the way and dropped in Cuba. There, he made his living by performing gigs with the amazing power of Yiddish.

Anyway, after yiggidoyiggidoyiggidoying his way through Cuba, he tried again for a second time. This time, he was also caught but was saved by a man who offered to pay his ticket and immigration fees, let's call this man Tom. Once my Great Grandpappy was off the boat and on American soil, he said goodbye to Tom and went to work as a Yiddish comedian.

Ten years pass, and it's now the day of my Great Grandfather's wedding. He's with his wife, and a man comes over to him. It was Tom. It turns out that Tom was my Great Grandmother's dad.

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55. Yes, You're Officially A Witch

This has happened to me a bunch of times and is just some crazy coincidences, either that or I am a witch and should be burned.

When I was a kid my mum and I used to watch a lot of F1 motor racing and I had a particular dislike of Michael Schumacher for some reason. He was, as usual, winning a race and I got up in disgust and said to my mum and friend "ugh I hope he crashes and breaks his leg" (horrible child!) and sure enough, a couple of laps later he crashes and has a season-ending leg break.

Another time, whilst I was living in university accommodation we all went home for Christmas and I made a joke about us all returning to find our kitchen ceiling collapsed (we had a run of bad luck with everything breaking). And sure enough, when we return after the Christmas break a leak from the bathroom above had caused our kitchen ceiling to collapse.

The most recent was I made a joke to a colleague at work about being made unemployed because of the economy. There was no reason at all to believe anything like this was going to happen whatsoever but sure enough, half an hour later, I was called in to a surprise meeting and my boss was like "really sorry but we can't afford your salary anymore". My colleague's face, when I came out of the office to collect my belongings, was priceless.

My friends no longer let me make jokes or flippant remarks about anything.

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54. Two Funerals

I was at work a few years back and my co-worker gets a phone call from a hospital in New York that his brother Robert Lastname had died. It was somewhat expected as he had been in the hospital for a few weeks with some serious complications. The guy tells everyone in the office, calls a few local family members, and tells us he's going to take the rest of the day to start making arrangements.

As he's walking out the door, maybe 25 minutes later, the phone rings for him. It's the hospital. He picks up and they tell him, "We're sorry to call you to let you know that Robert Lastname has died." He says, "Yeah, I know, you called me a half-hour ago."

They said, "Sir, it just happened a few minutes ago, that's not possible". He says, "I'm telling you, I got a call a half-hour ago, I've already called my wife and brother to tell them and started to make arrangements." They have a bit of an argument about it, as the hospital is telling him it just happened a few minutes ago.

He finally says, "Give me the hospital number so I can call and figure out what's going on." She starts to give him the number and the area code is Florida.

Turns out, his father, Robert Lastname Sr, died unexpectedly, 25 minutes after his oldest son, a thousand miles away. Father never found out his son died. The guy I work with had to plan two funerals.

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53. A Hugely Small Place

My boyfriend is from halfway around the world, Zambia. I spent 2 years living about 750 miles away from there in South Africa 7 years ago. My flatmate who I was randomly placed with was also from Zambia, studying at a university in South Africa.

Flash forward 5 years. My boyfriend and I meet in New Orleans, where we both now live, and it turns out my flatmate was his best friend in high school.

Mind blown.

Maybe not impossible, but it is amazing to think a connection like that, over thousands of miles and years of time... The world kind of is a hugely small place.

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52. Two Hearts Beat As One

So, I was born with a pretty crazy heart condition. After moving to Idaho, the nearest place I could go for a check-up was Salt Lake City. Last time I went, during a summer of college, I had a totally clean bill of health.

About 2 years later, I start chatting with someone who lives in England. We hit it off, attempt the long-distance relationship thing, all that. She's about 4 years older, but also has an identical twin sister. Her sister is a cardiologist. Who did an internship in the United States. At the University Hospital in Salt Lake City. Who had examined me 2 years earlier.

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51. Meant To Be Together

When I was 8 my dad went into acute kidney failure. The doctors told him he had three choices; go on dialysis, get a transplant, or die. He was put on a long waiting list for a cadaver and also had 13 relatives tested to donate. None of the relatives were even partial matches, but it turns out my mom was somehow, magically a match. So, my mom gave my dad a kidney, and it is still working just fine 17 years later. Talk about meant to be together.

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50. The Black Cat

Every single girl I have dated/slept with has had the same poster in their bedroom, my wife included. It's a poster with a cat on it that says "le chat noir."

Not that I had tons of girlfriends or slept around a ton but literally every one of them had that poster hanging in their room.

I went on a road trip to visit a friend when I was like 25 that I thought had ended the poster streak. I ended up going home with a friend of his I had hit it off with. I was weirdly surprised that she didn't have that poster in her bedroom. It was the 12th or 13th bedroom I'd been in and the first girl's bedroom without that poster.

After we fooled around we were just laying in bed listening to music and talking. She was playing some band I had never heard of but liked and she offered to burn me a copy of it (it was like 2002/2003, CDs were still a thing).

Guess what her desktop wallpaper was. When she turned the computer on and I saw it I almost did a spit take. While not technically a poster I still think it counts.

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49. A Civil War Of Silence

When I was in college, this really stupid joke spread like wildfire in my dorm: "Do you know that whenever there's an awkward silence, someone thinks about Abraham Lincoln?" "Really?" "No, but now you will."

The next week, I went to a religious conference in a different city. I was making small talk with some new acquaintances, and the conversation ran its course, leaving us in awkward silence.

Of course, I remember that dumb joke, and at that very moment, from across a very large and rather crowded room, I lock eyes with an ABRAHAM LINCOLN IMPERSONATOR. And no, there was absolutely no reason for someone dressed as Abraham Lincoln to be there, and yes, he was unmistakably supposed to be Abraham Lincoln, from the stovepipe hat to the beard to the old-timey clothes.

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48. Clearly Meant To Be Together

When I was 5 and living in Ohio, I watched a boy just a few years older than me mow a lawn near my best friend's house. I remember thinking he was cute and very young to be mowing. My friend didn't know who he was because an old lady lived in the house.

Fast forward 15 years and I was living in Indiana and working with a guy that I kind of liked. I was driving back to Ohio one weekend to do my laundry at my parents' house, and notice that he is driving next to me on the highway. Turns out that his parents live less than 3 miles from my parents' house and he was going home to visit his folks as well.

Come to find out, he grew up in Arizona and his grandma lived in a small Ohio town. He visited. One summer, mowed her lawn, I watched. His parents moved to a small Ohio town near the Grandma years later, and my parents bought a house near his parents. He and I both moved to Indiana, where we met at a job.

Stranger yet, we ALMOST met 6 months before we started working together. I was in marketing and had an event at a bar. He ran the kitchen at the bar and would have met me that night. Instead, the police came and shut the bar down that very day due to a bankruptcy that we didn't know was coming.

We have been married for 21 years.

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47. Matching Payments

A few years back, while I was working in a little pub, a couple of two-seater tables next to one another were finishing up at the same time. I got them both their checks, and both parties decided to split their bill. Upon trying to close them out, I realized that not only were the amounts split identically down to the cent, but each table had matching sets of cards, at least by the final four digits (i.e. Table 1 had a charge of 28.79 on card ending 1000 and another for 28.78 on card ending 5008. Table two's charges were identical, down to the cent and last four digits on both cards). I've never gotten over how unrealistically improbable it all was.

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46. Long-Distance Kebab

Here in my little town in northwest England there's a good kebab shop from which the lads and I have ordered for years. We've been in there after countless nights out and had them deliver to our doors, so we know the guys who work there pretty well. They're mostly Turkish.

Once a few of us got together for a short break in Turkey. Having got off the plane, we waited in the car park outside for another pal who'd been on a different flight. As we stood, soaking in the ambiance of a new country, none other than the tall guy from our local kebab shop walked across the road right in front of us, two thousand miles from home. That was weird.

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45. Tall Paul

Seeing Paul McCartney (The Beatles) on TV in 2001, and noticing he was tall. Next day I'm walking down a very quiet street, and walking towards me is a really tall guy, and it was Paul McCartney. He must've seen my expression so he veered my way, stuck his hand out and said, "Hi, mate." 18 years later I'm still shocked.

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44. Belongings On A Bus

I used to get two buses home from work. I got off the first one having left my phone and keys on the front seat of the bus without realizing. Got on the second bus, went to my favored front seat and my possessions that I didn’t know were missing were waiting for me. The bus had changed driver and route. Still freaks me out to this day.

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43. Creepy Couple Encounter

Nobody believes me when I tell this story, but one day my husband and I ran into the same couple at three different places, in two different states.

So my husband and I had an errand to run out of state. We leave early and stop to get breakfast. The couple was sitting across from us. The lady had on a funky shirt which is why she stuck out in my mind. After breakfast we drive the next state over to the office we have an appointment at. We're waiting in the lobby and the couple from the breakfast joint walks in! Weird! So we spend the day finishing up our errands and then we drive back home. I didn't feel like cooking so we stopped to get some dinner at the pub. We sit down at the table and guess who's already eating at the table behind us? The same couple!

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42. Just Reminiscing

I was in St. Augustine on vacation. On the way there I just happened to think about this girl I knew back in college in Orlando. Just sorta wondered what she was up to and the like. Sure enough, I ran into her in a bar there the first night. She was there celebrating graduating from PA school.

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41. The Polite Penguin

When I was a kid, we had this plush penguin that would play Jingle Bells if you squeezed its stomach. One Christmas, it got broken so that it just kept playing the song endlessly. This went on for hours. My mom tried stuffing it in the couch cushion, but we could still hear it. Finally, I got super annoyed, grabbed the penguin, and said: "This is really annoying, could you please stop?" It stopped immediately.

40. Meant To Be

Went to college, met a cute girl.

"Where'd you go to high school?" she asks. "You've never heard of it," I reply. I grew up in a town of 1200 people, graduated in a class of about 90.

"Try me," she says.

And that was the beginning of finding out that not only had she heard of it, she had almost attended it because her family had lived in one of the neighboring towns very briefly when she was growing up. We shared dozens of mutual friends, and had apparently spent our young lives narrowly missing each other.

Later, after we started dating, we learned that one of our mutual friends had been trying to set us up with each other for YEARS. She was overwhelmed with laughter when she saw that we were finally together, completely without her involvement.

I asked her to marry me, she said yes. We went out to dinner with our parents so they could finally meet. Her folks arrive at the restaurant and see mine. Her mom goes, "Oh hey, [my dad's name]. So this is your son, huh?" They had been co-workers years ago.

Of course. We've been married for eleven years now. Got a good thing going. We intend to keep it.

39. A Trippy Experience

Was sitting in a restaurant about 200 miles from where I live, telling my mother (who was visiting from a different country) about a trip I had taken to another country (about 6,000 miles away) with a work colleague. The lady at the table next to us leans over and says, "I think you're talking about my son." Turns out I was sitting next to my colleague's parents while showing my mom pictures of our trip.

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38. Future Family Photo

When I started hanging out with my girlfriend, she invited me over to her house. It turned out to be the first house I ever lived in. Her grandmother, who lives down the street, was friends with my parents. She worked for the doctor who delivered me.

Fast-forward a little bit and we’re sitting around looking at her old family pictures. There’s this one of a 4th of July parade in my neighborhood. There was a little boy in the picture that they didn’t really know , but it looked an awful lot like me. I asked my dad and he remembered that day. He took us to our old street to watch the parade. When I was a toddler I had wandered into my future girlfriend’s family picture.

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37. Camping Coworkers

Worked half a day. Drove six hours from Southern California to Northern California for car camping with my wife. Chose an obscure campground which was nearly deserted (it was the offseason). Picked the most deserted and remote campsite location (we planned on rocking the tent). Were bummed after setting camp when another couple selected the site right next to us. Turns out to be a coworker I’d spoken with earlier that day.

I hadn’t told coworker anything about plans. We weren’t close. Earlier that day we spoke briefly of work-related issues.

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36. Hunting Tamales

My wife and I were in Tucson visiting my mother who had  just moved there. My wife decided she wants a tamale. We drove around for two hours stopping in restaurants looking for tamales. Couldn’t find one. Went back to my mother's apartment.

Literally two minutes later, somebody knocked on the door of my mother's apartment asking us if anyone wanted to buy any tamales.

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35. The Roommate's Roommate

One year I got a roommate through Craigslist. The guy was weird for sure, but good-natured and paid rent.

Anyway, after about two months of living with him, my cousin comes over to hang. I introduce the two and my cousin in the most chill voice ever said, “Nah man, we know each other.” Turns out they were college roommates five years earlier in another state.

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34. Lost Identity

My sister Emily was on a ski lift in New Mexico when some younger girl across from her asked if her name was Emily. Apparently, the stranger, who kind of looked similar but underage, had found her lost ID the year prior and had been using it for a year to buy drinks.

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33. Small-Town Girl

I moved from my small hometown, halfway across the country to a small city where I knew absolutely no one. At the first party I went to in the new town, I started chatting with a guy. Turns out he had also just left my small hometown.

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32. A Scarring Moment

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31. Birthday Crown

Was at the dentist getting a crown extension.

Dentist: "Hey, you were born on July 13th, so was I."

Assistant: "Me too."

We all shared a look of surprise and longing with each other. Longing to be closer. Then they drilled the absolute crap out of my teeth.

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30. A Convenient Arrest

An officer from a different PD was showing me a picture of a guy they wanted to arrest in a different part of town. As I looked up from the computer, I see the idiot riding by on a bike. Literally five feet away from the squad car.

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29. A Romantic Convention

I was at a convention. There were only a few people in the room. My friend and I wanted an autograph from a voice actor. He started singing in his character voice. There were two random guys next to me. One pulled out a video camera to record it.

Years later, my husband and I are talking with friends, and the convention comes up. The guy with the video camera was my husband. I also took a picture later that day of the crowds, and he is in that picture. I stood next to my husband years before I met him.

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28. A Call From The Past

Back in the early-mid '90s, the phone system changed and you no longer needed to dial the area code for a long distance in-state call. (We're a small state with only one area code).

One morning I woke up to the phone ringing. When I picked up, I recognized the voice on the other end as belonging to my old boss from a few years ago. She had an unmistakable voice.

We had a nice conversation for a bit before she realized she had dialed the wrong number. I lived in a different town in a different part of the state, but the number must have been off by only one digit from the one she'd tried to call.

To add to the coincidence, I had overslept and would have been late for work if she hadn't called me and woken me up.

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27. A Tokyo Meetup

Two years ago I was in Tokyo on holiday. I looked on Instagram and saw an old friend post a story showing he was also in Tokyo. We hadn’t spoken in a few years, but I sent him a message letting him know we were in the same city. Not even five minutes later, we walked into a bar and he was standing there.

This past November, I was in Toronto on business. After dinner, we went to a pub downtown. The first person I saw when I walked in was the same friend from Tokyo.

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26. Returning Home

I started dating this girl a few weeks ago. We get to talking about where we live, etc. She lives in not only the same building but the exact same apartment I lived in two years ago. It was so bizarre walking into my old apartment that I never thought I would see again. What are the odds?

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25. Copycat Coworker

The person who sits next to me at work copies everything I do except she has no way of knowing. I wear a blue sweater, she wears a blue sweater. I bring leftover spaghetti, she brings leftover spaghetti. It is so weird I almost hate her.

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24. Conniving Clan Member

When I was a kid, around 13, I played a lot of a video game called Diablo 2. I started a clan with a few people I’d met on the internet and we played every day. At some point, we were helping some random person and he asked to join. We thought he was nice enough so we let him in. As part of this clan, we had a shared account we used to store game items for each other. After about a month of playing, this new guy goes in and changes the password, steals the account, and defriends everyone. Completely disappears off the map with all of our stuff.

Fast-forward a year later. My family moves to Texas and it’s my first day at school. I’m sitting in algebra class talking to the person in the seat next to me and he mentions he plays Diablo. I said me too and that I ran a clan and everything. I asked his username and it was him.

2,000 miles away from where I first virtually met this guy, he’s sitting next to me in math class. When I told him mine, his face went into total shock and he didn’t know how to respond. It was awkward for sure. I ended up telling him I didn’t care and was over it but let’s just say we didn’t end up becoming friends.

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23. Times Square Serendipity

Last summer, I went to New York with my family for a week. A friend of mine that I hadn't seen since she graduated from college was living and working in New York at the time, so we decided to meet up.

As we were walking through Times Square at 11 p.m. on a Saturday, who did we see on the other side of the street but another friend of ours from college. I knew he had been living in New Jersey, but he was in New York for a Grindr date. The three of us went to a bar and talked about life and how none of our friends live in Ireland anymore, they've all moved abroad. It was bittersweet and a crazy coincidence that three friends from a small university in Dublin would serendipitously meet in New York City.

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22. Fly By

I was a kid out hiking with my dad. I was babbling and said: "The teacher told us if you speak too much a fly will get in your mouth." At that exact moment, a fly flew into my mouth.

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21. The Combination Coincidence

My best friend in high school had the same exact locker combination as me in a school of 1,200 people.

Saw a combo written on a piece of paper of his and I asked why he wrote down my combo. He looked confused and said that’s his combo.

The combination locks are changed and reassigned each year.

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20. Exact Change

When my best friend and I were around 16 years old, we both had a bunch of coins we were taking to CoinStar at Kroger. We had the EXACT same total in coins. To. The. Penny.

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19. Messed Up At The Dance

When I was 18, I dated a girl who went to a private school. She told me they were having a dance so I thought okay great, it'll be a nice night. She told me that only boys from a specific boys' private school were allowed to come because of an incident once when they let everyone in. Some girl got really messed up and puked on the Headmaster's shoes so they limited it to one boys' school after that.

Fast-forward 12 years and I'm with my fiancée (a different girl) at a wedding shower. I overhear my wife say, "I was so embarrassed when I puked on the Headmaster's shoes."

I yelled, "THAT WAS YOU?... that's awesome. I love you even more now that you're famous."

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18. Sight-Seeing Friends

In freshman physics, I became friends with the Japanese kid next to me. After a while, he was helping me with my Japanese homework.

But after that class, we kinda drifted apart. Fast-forward two years later. I'm an exchange student in Japan over the summer and doing some sightseeing in Kyoto after the program. I'm crossing the street in Kyoto and I hear my name being called out. I look around and there he is! Thousands of miles apart, we meet again.

We got some good food together. It was a blast.

No, his hometown was not Kyoto, he was also doing sightseeing while home for the summer.

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17. The Donated Dresser

I had recently graduated from a large state school and found a room in an empty house to rent. Since I was moving from my college apartment, I didn't have furniture, and I decided to grab a dresser a previous occupant had left in the basement. It wasn't anything crazy-looking, but it wasn't a basic mass-produced IKEA dresser either. Something a bit older, but not antique. Three of my friends helped me move it upstairs while we were waiting for a fourth. The fourth friend arrives, walks into my room and stares at my dresser for a long time before saying, "Why do you have my dresser?"

It turns out her parents had donated her childhood dresser to Goodwill, and the previous occupant of the house was from the same tiny town she was and had got his dresser at that Goodwill.

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16. A Failing Joke

A classmate of mine sent a fake email that looked totally legit to select members of my class saying that we had failed a really important exam which carries bad consequences for our career. After we freaked out, he let us know it was just a joke, and when the results came out a week later there was only one person who failed: my classmate that sent the fake email.

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15. Men In Pajamas

I wanted my husband to accompany me down to the parking garage in our building to grab something from our car. He was already in his PJ pants and didn't want to come. I convinced him no one would see us, and he reluctantly agreed. We got on the elevator and rode down one floor before it stopped to let someone on. The largest, buffest man steps into the elevator wearing his own PJ pants. He said nothing but gave my husband the dude head nod before getting off on the main floor and disappearing forever. We've never seen him since.

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14. Holy Coincidence

About 30 years ago, I went to a church in one state and my family became friends with another family there. Both families eventually moved out of state away from each other. Fast-forward to six months ago, when I have moved to a different state from any of the previous states mentioned, and bump into that family at church.

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13. Beauty Product Bonding

I was browsing beauty products I've never heard of on the internet, when suddenly out of nowhere my dad (who was in South Korea at the time) Facetimed me to ask if I wanted the exact same product I was looking at.

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12. Arresting Development

For over a decade, I very rarely remembered any of my dreams. One night, I had a very vivid dream that I was busted by the cops for possession and was sentenced to prison. The dream itself was agonizingly paced as if in real-time. Days turned to weeks, to months. The pain of losing everything and everyone in my life had sent me into catatonic despair when all of a sudden, I awoke. I instinctually checked my phone only to find a ton of missed texts, emails, and phone calls from a friend who was arrested (for possession) that night while I slept and had been trying to get me to bail him out.

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11. Butterfly Effect

I got a new computer and was scrolling through pictures on the old one with my little brother. There was a picture I had taken of two butterflies (one blue, and one yellow) on a large purple flower. I loved this picture and always thought how lucky I was to have taken it. The colors were so vivid and the butterflies so patient to let me get three shots in before they flew away.

My brother was in awe of it so I said, "Wow you really like this one?" He pulled out his phone and said, "No I took this photo." Sure enough, he had been to the same park the summer after I took my picture. His had the same species of plant and butterflies, in the same park, and around the same area and time of day. What are the chances? This was years ago. I'll have to see if he still has his.

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10. Friends In The Desert

Went to Egypt and randomly met a good friend of mine in the middle of the desert.

I'm not talking at the pyramids, I mean we were in the desert and I was like, "Is that Jenny...? "

Halfway across the world, in the middle of the desert, away from anyone else.

That was weird.

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9. A Crappy Situation

I was about three or four and my grandpa took me for a walk. Suddenly, I had this very intense feeling of deja-vu. Without thinking I raised my palm in front of me and in that instant bird poo landed right on it. The strangest part was... I knew that this was going to happen. Can't really describe it, but it was strangely the most perfect moment of my life.

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8. Consistent With Six

I turned 6 on 06/06/06. I was born at 6:06 pm. I’m 6’0.

And before you ask, no I don’t have six fingers on either of my hands.

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7. Water Karma

One summer when it was blazing hot I was leaving Home Depot and there was a guy panhandling at the exit. I gave him an ice-cold water out of my lunch cooler and went on to my job. When I got there, the homeowner was like, "It sure is hot today, would you like a water?" He brings me out the exact same kind of bottled water I just gave away.

Stupid but with all the brands of bottled water there is, it just was like dang, the universe just gave me my water right back.

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6. A Strange Connection

I was at work when my boss’s son called and asked if we had an extra ethernet cable he could have (we didn’t).

An hour later, a customer walked in and asked, “Do you guys need any ethernet cables? We had a bunch of extra ones that we can’t use at work, and we’ll just throw them away unless we can find someone to give them to.”

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5. Final Cut

When I was a kid, someone in my family broke a glass vase on the wood floor. My mom cleaned it up as best she could but wanted us to wear shoes in the kitchen for a few days just in case she’d missed some, and she continued sweeping to try and get the last little bits.

I was loudly complaining about the injustice of having to wear shoes in my own house when I stepped on that final piece of glass.

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4. What A Twist

My old work ran a Secret Santa the week before Christmas. It was a $10 limit and I didn't know the person I was buying for very well. I left my buying to the last minute because I just didn't know what to get her.

So I was in town and walking past some shops when lo and behold, I see an old copy of Oliver Twist in the window of the second-hand book store. It just called to me, so I went in and picked it up. I checked the first page for the cost and guess what? $10 - perfect.

So come the day of the Secret Santa, we were all opening our gifts, some 150 people. Out of the corner of my eye I see some people crowding around a woman who is crying. I keep listening and people are calling out for the person who was her Santa. I go over and reveal that it was me.

The lady I had bought for was crying and hugged me. She said 10 years ago her house burned down along with all her of possessions. The book that I bought her was her favorite and also the exact same edition, so it had the exact same cover she remembered.

Because it was a second-hand book it was even weathered in the same places she remembered, so it was as if I'd grabbed the book off her shelf before the fire and delivered it to her 10 years later.

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3. A Pivotal Moment

In grade 10 English class, the teacher didn't have anything planned for us to do and it was close to the end of the year, so she goes to the big cupboard in the corner and pulls out a stack of copies. They're examples of a successful essay written during a final exam, so we can learn what a good one looks like and how to build a narrative, etc. The topic of these was "What was the most pivotal moment of your life?"

There's three examples, ranging in proficiency. We read through the first two, and I volunteer to read the last one aloud. I start reading... and I stop. The essay was about... me. My big sister had gotten a really good mark six years earlier on her final exam essay which she wrote about the day I was born. I got pretty emotional about that one.

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2. The Final Visit

My dad passed away last summer. While I was making calls letting the rest of the family know the bad news, I ran across the number of one of my dad's childhood friends whom he kept in contact with throughout the years. The number must’ve been old and disconnected because I couldn’t get in touch with him. I was severely disappointed that my dad's best friend and probably one of his only friends wouldn’t be able to make it to the funeral, so I attempted to reach out to him through anyone that might’ve known how to contact him. No luck.

Days go by and my dad’s funeral comes. After the service, on the way from the funeral home to the cemetery, I get a call through my dad's phone. It was his friend calling to say that he was coming into the state headed to our house for a visit and he just wanted to make sure that my father would be available. It absolutely shook my world. I told him that he had passed away a couple of days prior and that he had just missed the funeral and we were currently at the cemetery.

He met my mother and I a couple of hours later and said his final goodbyes to my father. I’ll never get over how he happened to be on his way down for a visit on the day of my dad's funeral but I’m glad he was able to make it to send my dad off.

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1. Wife Her Up

In 2006, I was living in a city I didn't like without a car and working a job I hated. The job was about two hours away by bus due to the number of transfers I had to make. I spent a lot of time reading to distract myself en route and away from work.

It was late summer, but not very late. I was on my way back to the apartment I shared with my friends after a long shift and not looking forward to the ride home. Fortunately I had Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" to keep me company for the ride. I also had my thoughts.

It was a tough year. I had left a long-term relationship earlier in the year, which upended a lot of the stability and things I had taken for granted in my life. No car, new apartment, new dynamics with mutual friends. It had been a couple months and I had gone on a few dates with a girl I had met at college. I liked her and I thought she liked me, but I worried that maybe I was moving too quickly into dating, especially since she had left a long relationship earlier in the year as well. I've never known how to date, so I felt out of my depth and wasn't sure what was normal or abnormal in this situation.

All the things that tend to be on your mind in a situation like this were on my mind as I walked out of work that day, towards the bus stop at the top of the hill. I had sent a few texts to the girl earlier, but she had seemed distracted. Oh well. Better to put it out of my head, I thought. I arrived at the stop at about the same time as the bus, boarded, and settled into my book.

Three stops after I had boarded, I heard someone talking to the driver and noticed we hadn't gotten back on the road yet. I didn't stop reading and didn't even look up until the sounds up front stopped being spoken to the driver and started being directed to me. "[MY NAME]!" said the girl at the front of the bus. I looked up and took what was probably a frustrating amount of time to process what was happening. After longer, I'm sure, than the other bus riders would have liked, I gathered my things and stepped off the bus with this girl, still quite in shock.

She grabbed my hand and walked rapidly, pulling me along, to a side street where her car was idling. "I can't believe I had to stop a bus for you," she said as the bus revved past us. We got in the car and she pulled onto the main street.

"I yelled to you while you were walking through the parking lot," she said, and I smiled a little. "And then I drove alongside you and yelled out the window," she said, and I smiled a bit more, warming to her adorable frustration. "And then you got on that stupid bus!"

"I didn't know you were picking me up!" I said, and she gave me a look that I've come to know very well over the years. "You were obviously having a really bad day. I thought it would make you feel better to go do something together." I reached out for her hand. "It really would," I said. "Where are we going?"

She laughed. "Oh, no. I did my part. I stopped a bus for you. You get to choose where we're going." I nodded, and I gathered scattered thoughts into a clear picture. She was in it. "All right. I've got a good idea."

We were married two years later.