Just think. If you hadn't done something at a certain time, or moved to a certain place instead of another, you may not have met you bff/significant other/gotten that job. Everything in your life can be explained by contrived coincidences. Parents didn't happen to meet at a restaurant because dad couldn't find his keys and get to work on time? No you.

This troper's great-grandfather ran off to America instead of marrying my great-grandmother when they discovered she was pregnant. Nobody in either family heard anything from him for twenty years, before his younger brother accidentally walked into him on the streets of New York. Imagine the odds of that...

This troper's great-grandfather left his wife and moved east, never to be heard from again. On a visit to Little Bighorn National Monument, an old lady overheard our name as my father and I checked in at a random little hotel and said it was familiar to her. As it turns out, she's my great-aunt. She worked at the hotel, but her shift had ended at least an hour prior, and she rarely stayed late - except, of course, the day we checked in.

This troper's brother traveled South America for a year. Somewhere in Peru he went looking for someone to team up with for the next bit of travel and found this one guy who could speak English. Not only could the guy speak English, but he turned out to be Danish (as my brother) as well. As if the familiar language from way back home wasn't enough - the guy turned out to be our first cousin who, due to multiple divorces and the like, we'd never been in contact with!

This troper's family has a schism dating back a couple of generations. My grandfather split with his cousin's branch of the family. A couple generations later, my younger brother went to the same middle school and was in the same class as a granddaughter of the cousin that started to split. They had no idea they were related until both of their grandmothers came to pick them up one day and recognized one another.

This troper had a best friend in small-town high school. he moved about away to College A and met a nice girl. One time I visited them and told them about my plans to go to College B. His girlfriend says she almost went to College B, but decided not to because her ex-boyfriend went to that school. I go to College for about 3 years and change roommates a few times. one night my roommate is worked up about his new girlfriend having his doubts after the fiasco with his ex. when he says her first name, i respond with her last name. I had moved in with my best friend's girlfriend's ex-boyfriend. needless to say, it weirded us both out.

Some things That have happened that I have seen or been told: 1) Two people not only lived in the same town, worked in the same company, but when each moved, without knowing, had moved to within two houses of one another. 2) Someone not making their plane, only to find out that the connector had been canceled and they would have been stranded RIGHT AFTER they bought a new flight the next day. 3) A person's car stalled when they put their foot on the gas. Good thing, too, or they would have been hit by the ambulance running the lights without its lights/siren on. and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I travel across the Atlantic to a convention in Eastern America, intending, among other things, to meet my favourite webcomic artist. I meet her, but I also met a friend of her family, who happened to be was best friends with a guy who switched schools and countries when they were still young, and ended up in the same school class as me.

This troper lives in New Jersey. In middle school he was a member of a music organization that organizes Catholic school children into state-wide bands. In said band there was a pair of triplets who I got acquainted with. I Finished middle school and began to attend school in New York City. At the first dance I ran into that same pair of triplets. They had a friend who went to my school.

One time on my way back to Campus from the mall I strike up a conversation with a random girl on the bus. We talk for a bit and get off at the same place, and part ways after grabbing a coffee together. First bit of weirdness was her knowing my name before I said it, since apparently she had overheard it a week earlier in a public building and remembered me. Second bit being a few weeks down the line when I visit my friend on his floor, and when he goes to talk to his female friend.. her roommate turns out to be the girl from the bus.

This troper has two:

I took my brother to his driving test, the DMV for which is quite a ways from our house. While I was waiting, another guy about my age saw I was reading ''GoodOmens'' and we talked about it for a while. My brother finished his test (having failed for the third time) and I drove him home, not giving the guy another thought. Two weeks later, my brother and two of his friends needed a ride to a comic store. My mother asked me to do it. I come downstairs and who do I see but driving school guy? Turns out he's friends with my brother (who he hadn't even known was ''at'' the DMV that day). Even weirder? I finally got his name-- he's my good friend's boyfriend.

A man who was in the same fraternity as my grandfather became kind of an anarchist and shot and killed an IRS agent who had been hounding him for unpaid taxes. He wrote to several people from prison, one of whom was my grandfather. They kept up a bit of a correspondence until the man died from cancer. A couple of years later, my grandmother met a woman in church wearing a big button with a date on it. She asked what it was about, and the woman said she worked for the IRS and every year they would wear these buttons to commemorate a man who was killed "in the line", so to speak, on that day (this was the first day it had been a Sunday). My grandmother does a little math, and... yeah. My dad and I mull over the idea every now and then of writing to Miss Manners and asking what the appropriate response would have been in that situation.

This troper knows someone who has moved all over the country and back in the last 15 years. So imagine her surprise when, out here in the middle of nowhere, she runs into her aunt (who she thought was living about 50-100 miles from here)?

This troper had one a while back, me and my friend were playing on Mario Kart DS together for a bit. Later, we decided to play different people online. So we both have our DS's search for opponents, and out of potentially anybody on earth, we find each other, this happened twice. One other time with the very same friend he had brought his laptop round, I showed him a website called Omegle in which starts you a conversation with a random person, and surprise surprise, we find each other again.

This troper and a friend of his went to a book signing in a city a few hours away. After the signing we explored the book store (Powell's City of Books, which earns it name), and run into another friend of theirs, who lived in a different city a few hours away from either location, who wasn't there for the signing.

Here's a good one: last year, after a five day festival at camp, I realize when we get home that I left my backpack with my school stuff, but not my clothes suitcase, semi-yay. Dad drives us back, and halfway there, I spot one of our friends we had lost touch with half a year ago, just moseying along the side of the road. One "Reverse course immediately, Mr. Sulu," and our token goth is sitting next to my dad asking him for a ride home. We get his contact info, and now he works at the same place as my dad, and his girlfriend just moved in with us. I never did get that backpack back...

When Tropers/SunnyV was going to camp for the second time, she happened to meet a girl she knew last year. That girl just happened to be assigned to the same cabin and counselor that Tropers/SunnyV was.

This troper was randomly surfing TheOtherWiki and was reading about blood types and an author (whose name I can't remember... drat!) randomly. Next day in Bio class, we were asked a question about codominance and blood types (which had been brought up in the book in a chapter I hadn't yet read...) and the guy who sits next to me asked if I had heard about said author.

There was also another total NightmareFuel incident in 8th grade. I was up at the office, waiting for my mom to pick me up because I was sick. In walks one of the District police officers. He goes to the front office and starts talking─in a very audible voice (and this is in front of me, he passed me walking in)─about this female 8th grade student who was missing a lot of school. Who'd happened to start at the school the same day I had (I switched schools midway that year). I freaked─I had been missing tons of school because I was sick. I was reassured that he wasn't talking about me, but I swear, it was this trope.

The ''only'' reason this troper wasn't inside the Twin Towers on 9/11 was because it was one day her mother wasn't able to take her there herself and the job was instead given to said troper's lazy father.

On the last day of my Senior class trip to Disneyland, I decided to go on space mountain, which I hadn't be on for ages. Well the thing always has a massive line for it. So there I am, expecting to wait at least a good hour or so, slowly pacing forward to the ride (and I'm probably a good 3-4 yeards from the actual entrance). Suddenly, a young woman passes by and asks me if I'm waiting for the ride, and offers a fast pass due to the fact that something came up on her end and she had to leave the ride. Well great for me, I get to go on the ride much sooner and thus save plenty of time. Not an hour or so later, as I'm heading for the Tower of Terror, do I run into a father and his kids about to head onto the ride, and they just so happen to have a spare ticket. Lucky day indeed. Want to know what makes those coincidences even more funny? A few years later, I'm going to movies with my brothers, and I happen to mention my two little strokes of lucks with tickets. Just as we're about to order our tickets, someone passes us by and offers their free ticket voucher.

YMMV but This Troper thinks she just had one. Yesterday I (switching to first person now) tripped over one of my cats and managed to fall onto the toilet (this happened in my parents bathroom) in such a way that I managed to break the toiet. Suffice to say we now have to replace it. My mom was thrilled as this means she can get a new toilet since the one I broke was awful and now she could take it and make it into a planter and put it out in the front yard, pretty much as a giant F**k you to the Historic Society since there isn't anything they can do to stop her. No, I'm not kidding. Anyway the next night (which is also tonight) my parents get a call from a friend of ours (we'll call him R) and they tell him what happened. R tells my dad that he will be there in ten minutes, without telling him why. The first thing that pops into my mind is R bringing us a toilet, because that would be awesome but I don't say anything. R pulls in to the drive way and my dad gets up to meet him outside. He gets his head out the door before I hear him say "I don't believe it.". I come up behind him and ask, "Is it a toilet?". My dad barely gets out a yeah before I see R walking up to the door carrying a TOILET! One short explanation later we find out that R had already had the toilet loaded into his minivan days before I had even broken our toilet, My parents looked it over while I was having a borderline I Knew It Happy Dance moment. Turns out the toilet R brought us is the right shape and size despite the fact that R had no clue what type of toilet we were replacing.

Some believe it has been done on MythBusters. While waiting for a fire extinguisher to over-pressurize and explode, the build team starts playing charades. As Grant starts acting out a clue, Tory says, "Two words... sounds like...?" At that moment, the extinguisher erupts in a massive explosion. While they have asserted that this was indeed a coincidence, this troper's wife is convinced that it was intentionally timed for comedy.

This troper's father went to junior high school and high school with a guy named Jim, and they didn't see much of each other for years after graduation. After that this troper's father traveled, went to college and graduate school, worked for several years, and decided to go to law school. The law school he settled on was in another state, but shortly after moving there he happened to bump into Jim on the street. Jim was now an artist, but just happened to be live in the same town where this troper's father had moved.

this troper met one of her best friends online back in the late 90's for the first time in a roleplay community, fell out of touch with her, then a couple of years later ran into her in a completely different online community, fell out of touch again, only to run into her in an IRC channel she popped into off and on only to hear her mention an offhand comment about the college she had started attending that year, which is located in this troper's hometown. while we got along great online, we quickly became close enough we consider each other as important as family members (and more important than some of our family members). even now that she's been out of college and moved back to where her family lives we're still close friends and try to at least get together offline at least once a year (which is more often than either of us sees some of our family members).

This troper and her mother were standing in line for an early showing of a movie (she won tickets to see it a day early), when the people in charge said they ran out of room. This cued most of the people in line to leave, this troper's mother was going to leave as well but stopped when she heard some guy saying he had two places to give away. The funny part? This troper had just finished saying "We'd better get a free T-shirt or something, I'm not leaving here empty-handed."

This troper's 8th grade language arts teacher just missed being in the world trade center on September 11, 2001.