• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

A crazy synchronicity

feinman

Account Retired
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
2,761
I work at a highly rated public library as a reference librarian. About five years ago while working at the desk, a boy in an elaborate pirate costume walked past. I decided to look up a Wikipedia article about one famous pirate known for placing burning <edit> <pirate's name clue edited out>(name omitted for privacy ;)). As I was reading his real last name I was interrupted by a woman who approached me. She told me she had just been divorced and needed to change her name back to her maiden name. She told me her last name, and it was the same last name as the famous pirate I just had my eyes on! An uncommon name. I was dumbfounded! I have had many other odd sychronicities in the library, but that tops them.
 
That's definitely an interesting synchronicity, feinman. It always gives me a jolt when hearing a word at the same time as reading it. All the more so if it's a rare one.

I'm curious, though. You sound so blase about the kid in the elaborate pirate costume...is that not an uncommon sight in your library? :eek:
 
Hi Bunnymousekitt,
It is not at all common! In fact in the 20 years that I have worked there, I have never seen another pirate (maybe the Depp movies had just come out?) Stranger still, is that it was actually a teen, and it wasn't Halloween! Doing a search for the name in my state only brings back 40 hits!; the confluence of circumstances is what makes it such a mindboink. I actually told the patron what happened at the time, but she seemed disinterested. Maybe Sheldrake's morphic resonance acts on many different levels independent of time. I even think it could explain people recalling "past lives".
 
Coincidences do happen.

Last September I was on holiday in Devon, I got talking to a man in a pub, who said I looked remarkably like his neighbour, I asked where he lived, and it was next door to my brother in Dudley.
 
ChrisBoardman said:
Coincidences do happen.

Last September I was on holiday in Devon, I got talking to a man in a pub, who said I looked remarkably like his neighbour, I asked where he lived, and it was next door to my brother in Dudley.

That is a strange coincidence indeed! Involving an unlikely meeting and a bunch of other factors. Often when I have traveled across the country to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I have run into childhood friends. Doesn't even phase me anymore.
 
Re: awrrrr!

thenumenorian said:
what was the pirate costume for/ ever find out?
No, I never did! I pointed the teen out to another librarian though, IIRC. It was pretty elaborate, and it wasn't Halloween. I think maybe it had something to do with an installment of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie series or something. It is a well off community, and there are some eccentric folks, but still, it was weird.

A lot of weird synchronicities have occurred where I work. One day I sent a link to a library staff member about the suicidemachine site that kills your social networking, only to discover that his brother had committed suicide that day, and had to apologize for it.

I have a wonderful corgi / chihuahua mix (Henry, but I call him "Hen") and I used to leave him at home when it was too hot to leave him in the car, in his crate, and drive home for lunch to take him out for a walk. I would set him on a couch looking out a large window near a huge Cedar of Lebanon, so he could enjoy it. One day when I came home I said "Hope you are enjoying the view, Hen!" while I switched on the TV. America's Funniest Home Videos was on, and a line of chickens was walking up a ladder into a tree. "Even chickens enjoy a good view" the host said, right after I was done speaking.

Yet another time, occasionally a staff member brings a treat to our five person book selecting meeting. At one of these meetings a colleague said "I was going to make cornbread and surprise everyone with it but didn't have time to make it!" Moments later another colleague shows up holding a tray of fresh homemade cornbread!

Now I have studied the occult and practiced on and off since I was in seventh grade, and I have my own beliefs as to why some of these things happen; pretty obvious really, in some cases...
 
Looking back over the email I sent to the colleague with the brother who committed suicide, I actually included the lyrics to "Suicide is Painless" :(
 
ChrisBoardman said:
Coincidences do happen.

Last September I was on holiday in Devon, I got talking to a man in a pub, who said I looked remarkably like his neighbour, I asked where he lived, and it was next door to my brother in Dudley.

A stranger stopped me at work last week and asked if I had any daughters. I do, and she asked if one was called X. Yes, I do, and this woman said 'She's my best mate!'
She had recognised me as being X's mother even though she'd never met me and didn't know where I work. Wouldn't be surprising if we looked alike, which I don't think we do, or even lived in the same town, which we don't. X lives 60 miles away. Near Dudley, in fact. :shock:

Indeed, I when I visited last week we went to the Dudley Venue for the sumptuous lunch buffet. I bet ChrisBoardman's brother knows that place! ;)
 
escargot1 said:
ChrisBoardman said:
Coincidences do happen.

Last September I was on holiday in Devon, I got talking to a man in a pub, who said I looked remarkably like his neighbour, I asked where he lived, and it was next door to my brother in Dudley.

A stranger stopped me at work last week and asked if I had any daughters. I do, and she asked if one was called X. Yes, I do, and this woman said 'She's my best mate!'
She had recognised me as being X's mother even though she'd never met me and didn't know where I work. Wouldn't be surprising if we looked alike, which I don't think we do, or even lived in the same town, which we don't. X lives 60 miles away. Near Dudley, in fact. :shock:

Indeed, I when I visited last week we went to the Dudley Venue for the sumptuous lunch buffet. I bet ChrisBoardman's brother knows that place! ;)

Interesting! I'll bet the feelers or shell gave you away :lol:
No, that is interesting, maybe a combination of looking similar along with mannerisms and maybe a few other things caused the connection to be made?
 
HenryFort said:
Yeah, just makes me remember how terrible I felt. I'd post the whole email, but it's against policy, and it was my boss's boss. :shock:
Apologies for lapses in spelling or grammar! I blame much of that on my Kindle Fire; it has an odd and incomplete lexicon, and changes my words as I type them! :evil:
I need to turn that feature off. The lexicon didn't contain the word "damned" but did contain the word "spandex"! :?
 
Feinman, read your messages! ;)

Yup, it must've been obvious who I was as there aren't many snails in my particular line of work. :lol:

I work in my home town where the young lady lives and she knows Escette from here - she was at school with my older children - so she had about a 1 in 70,000 chance of spotting me. That's better odds than your average Rollover.
 
Back
Top