Welcome back everyone to One Small World Podcast, I'm your host, Fern. I'm sure y'all aren't tired of my voice already so for some reason you're still listening. If you are, thank you. As a reward I'm gonna tell you some coincidence stories that aren't about me.
"Inconceivable" -- Vizzini, The Princess Bride
But thanks to pretty much anyone I can squeeze a story out of, we have a podcast. Keep sharing your stories and I'll keep telling them. Let's get into it.
Oh wait, the first story I'm gonna share is about me. Oops. I met some of my best friends in college and one is from my hometown, she went to my high school. That's not super unusual for our area, a lot of kids went to the same universities in our state, it was bound to happen. She also went to elementary and middle school with me but our schools all feed into each other so it made sense we would be in the same high school. What's funny though is that we weren't friends in high school. But we were friends in elementary school. We have pictures from like our seventh birthday parties and we're together, but when we got to college we hadn't really spoken since we were kids, it was kind of awkward. Nice, but a little awkward. Then we got assigned our random freshman dorms. Completely random and she and I end up on the same freshman hall. Oh yeah, also our dorm rooms were right next to each other. Literally next to each other. And thank god for that we immediately became close friends and I spent more time in her room that year than my own. We were super cute cause we were from the same town, on the same hall, and we were registered for the same major so we took a lot of classes together. Gotta thank those lucky stars we found our way back to friendship, and also random roommates.
Okay, for real this time, a story not about me. Next, we have a story sent in from Anna. It gets complicated right up front, so hold onto your hats. It starts with her sister. Her sister's boyfriend. His godparents. Are you still with me? The boyfriend's godparents turned out to be old friends of Anna's dad and uncle from school, unbeknownst to the girlfriend or either of their families. And the year Anna's sister and the boyfriend started dating, the boyfriend was housemates with a good family friend they've had since they were kids. Imagine you start dating someone and suddenly you find out they know all these people in your family you didn't think they'd ever have a connection with. Mind blown. Anna also shared that her mom had really wanted her sister's name to be Emily Mae. Spelled M A E. But her dad was like nah. They ended up naming her just Emily, so the kids' names: Anna, Emily, and their brother Michael. If you rearrange their first letters, you get MAE. It just shows that when you're thinking of coincidences you start to notice them more and more. Kinda like dreams, I guess, like when you start recording your dreams right after you wake up, you can train yourself to remember them more often making it seem like you had more dreams when really you were dreaming the same amount but now you're noticing? Same with coincidences, if you get what I mean. You start noticing and soon you can't stop.
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Next is a story from my friend Amy. She was walking her dog Barney on a beach a few years ago with her family and a dog that looked just like Barney came running over to them. They started politely chatting with the other dog's owners when her mom mentioned that Barney was born on Christmas Day. And the owner of the dog said Hey, so was our dog! They figured out the dogs are actually brothers, separated from the litter to their respective families. Amy said they traveled a long way to get Barney so it was such a coincidence that one of Barney's brothers lived so close to them. Amy also shared that her aunt and her husband were both born in the same year, at the same hospital, three hours apart. And their daughter has the same birthday too.
Katie shared that one of the best friends she made while studying abroad, from a different university, went to high school with one of her college friends, so she showed up to a foreign country like what's up I don't know anyone and everything's unfamiliar and this kid just went nah I know someone you know. The world isn't that big. Studying abroad must be a small crowd because one of Katie's roommates abroad went to school with and lived next to Katie's next door neighbor from home. That'll bring back down to Earth real quick.
This episode's last story is gonna be from my friend Aoife, which if you go back to the first episode I mention her in my first story of us on the metro. So this is from Aoife: She and her dad are on a flight to Ireland. Her dad is Irish and they're going to visit family. It was years ago now back when everything your dad says is super embarrassing, but Aoife vividly remembers the plane seating arrangement because of this story. The plane was separated into three sections of seats but two aisles. A man sat next to her at the window while she sat next to one of the aisles. Across the aisle in the other section was her dad. The trip had been pretty uneventful until they were about to land in Dublin. Guy next to her had been working on a laptop the whole flight but now had to put it away for landing. He starts making small talk with Aoife asking what was bringing her to Ireland. She says Oh, we're visiting family. The man replies, Oh, where, I'm from Ireland as well. And he of course has an accent, I'm not gonna do it. And her dad adds across from the aisle while leaning against her, Oh! Where are you from, yada yada yada. Also with an Irish accent. And they concluded they didn't know anyone in common in Ireland which if you know anyone from Ireland is very rare. Her dad keeps talking to the guy and eventually it comes up that although they're both from Ireland, they both moved to the US. The man says he lives in Lexington, Kentucky now. Oh, Aoife's dad says, you know this one woman who owns an Irish store also in Kentucky? And the man goes, Oh yeah I do. Finally they find a mutual friend: in Kentucky. Then, the man says Hey, wait, what's your name? Aoife's dad says Niall. (His name). The man replies, I have your number in my phone. Our mutual Irish friend in Kentucky gave it to me for business, I was supposed to call you and never did. Recap: two Irishmen sitting on a plane from Dublin from the US, don't know each other, don't realize they're sitting near one another except that Niall's daughter Aoife is sitting between them. And this random Irish stranger has her dad's cell phone number as he sits two seats away from him. That's crazy.
Alright, that's it for this episode but thanks for listening. Tune in next week for more coincidences and don't forget to send yours onesmallworldpodcast@gmail.com. Or check out our website! Linked in the description. See ya next time!
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