Basic Applied Statistics 200
Coincidences Spring 2005

A coincidence is a surprising concurrence of events, perceived as meaningfully related, but with no apparent causal connection. Should we really be surprised by these coincidences? Remember that when so many "unlikely" events are possible, according to the laws of probability, some of them are bound to happen. Like these...

(A.C.) Last weekend, I went to Blockbuster to rent a movie. I had opened an account at this Blockbuster when I first came here, and for my address used my home address. When I went to check out the movie, I didn't have my membership card with me, so they looked up my account with my name. When the account came up, the lady told me that I had a $38 late fee!! I knew that this wasn't right because I had only rented one or two movies since I have been here. I asked her to please double check, so she verified all my information. It turned out that there was a person with the same name as me, as well as with the same street address but in a different town and state.

(T.W.) I came to pitt along with several of my close friends from high school. one of those friends has the same name as me (Tim). the coincidence is not our names, but the fact that we both chose to room with a stranger; my roommates name is dallas, and my friend's roommates name is austin. it is pretty weird how we are both tims, and our roommates both have names that are major cities in texas. also, my best friends name is sean, and my roommates best friend is also named sean.

(G.N.) A coincidence I experianced happened at the begining of this school year. As an incoming freshman from a small town in northeast PA, it was rather daunting to go to a school so far away in a city. My father owns a shop, and one of his customers came in and was telling him that her granddaughter was also going to Pitt. Having never met the girl, I just forgot about the whole thing. On moving day, it just so happened I met the girl next door. This girl was the granddaughter of my father's customer... we are now close friends.

(M.K.G.) In high school my friend, Mike Moore, sat next to me in Chemistry. One day he asked me if my name Katy was short for something. I explained that my full name was Mary Kathleen Griffith (the Mary coming from my grandmother), but my parents always called me Katy as a nickname from Kathleen. Mike sat there astonished. He said, "You're never going to believe this, but my mother's full name is Mary Kathleen Griffith Moore, but she goes by Kathy." I decided if I ever married Mike or one of his brothers that I would still have the same name as Mrs. Moore.

(C.G.) Last year I received an entirely new cell phone plan, including a new number. Within the first 24 hours of having the phone, I had over 15 missed calls and voicemail messages from an array of people addressing me by my first name, and asking me to call them back. The problem was, I didn't recognize any of the phone numbers, nor did I recognize any of the voices on the other end of the phone. But somehow, they all knew who I was! A week later, I finally figured out that somebody else with my name had the same cell phone number, except with a different area code (mine is 412, hers is 724). To this day, I still get calls for the other "Carolyn" and it gets really confusing! Being that my name is not all that common, I really didn't think it was that likely for someone to have the same seven digit number in the western Pennsylvania area as me.

(S.W.) My Honors Physics teacher in high school was once telling me how I reminded him of his daughter, who is the same age as me and attends a different high school nearby. He mentioned that she was hoping to go to Pitt and that she would be at an honors banquet to which I also was invited. We met up at the banquet and it was almost as though we were looking in a mirror - we are both redheads, we both have glasses, we both play trumpet, we both sing in musicals and choir and the like, we both go to Pitt, we both are going for Pharmacy with conditional acceptance, we both have a good sense of humor, and we have about the same build. Can you have an identical twin sister who lives ten minutes down the road?

(K.P.) When I was in fifth grade, my first grade teacher told me that she wanted me to meet one of her new students. The girl had the name first and last name, Katie Poploski, as me and my teacher thought we were related. When I came home from school, I told my parents and they called the other Poploski family to see if we were indeed related. It turns out we we not related; however, the Katie Poploski in first grade had a sister named Collen and three brothers named Richard, Brian, and Matthew. These are the names of my siblings too! The other Poploski's had just moved into the township, and while we didn't share any relation our families became good friends. It was also the beginning of a lot of mix-ups! While this situation seems impossible, it may actually not be all that improbable considering all the possible improbable events that occur each day.

(A.H.) When I was a kid I had to go to a cardiologist's office an hour away from my hometown. We got to the office and upon check-in the receptionist got confused when my mom told her my name. She said "Andrea Hollister is already here..." and my mom was like..."no, we just got here." Turns out on that very same day in that same doctor's office, there were two unrelated Andrea Hollisters, and they had to differenciate us by social security numbers. My mom was pretty freaked out. Ha!

(D.J.) I went to a High School south of York, PA, and our school was a part of the District 7 Pennsylvania Music Educators Association for our District Chorus Festivals. Another school in this district was the Mechanicsburg High School, where I met a friend that I met up with only during the festivals each year. It turns out we both applied, got accepted and enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh for Pre-Pharmacy, and we both enrolled in the same statistics class at the same time, same semester without having previously spoken to each other about any of these topics; now we are best friends. What are the odds?

(S.M.) When I first went to kindgergarten, I met this girl named Christie. Well, we became really good friends and we'd go over to each other's houses a lot. Our parents became really good friends as well and it just so happened that Christie was my fourth cousin. I know that's a pretty distant cousin, but we were still related. After thinking about it, I really don't think it was that unlikely considering both of our families were from the same area.

(C.S.) Back when I was 14, the instant message system ICQ was popular. You could search for people by entering their name, city, or interests. One day I thought it would be interesting to search to see if anyone else had my name. I found one girl, from Ohio, with the same name. The funny thing was we actually had the same birthday too! Except she was 4 years older than I was and had a 2 year old son. I suppose the chances of 2 people having the same name and birthday weren't really that unlikely, but the whole coincidence was just so weird.

(S.K.) I met my best friend in middle school and it wasn't until high school that we found out that we both were ballet students at a dance school in a nearby city (we live in the suburbs) at the ages of 3 years old. It wasn't until her mother and grandmother were watching an old videotape one day while I was at her house, that I realized we both took ballet at the same time, same place, and were in the same dance recitals together back at the age of 3. We didn't meet and become friends until we were 13, yet we performed together all those years without being friends. This seemed like a big coincidence at the time, but I guess it isn't as unlikely as I thought. There are about four big dance companies in our area and we were the same age, so the probability of us being in the same dance school at the same time probably wasn't that unlikely.

(K.C.) My best friend from elementary school and I lost touch when I moved to a new school district. We ran into each other every once in a while, and sometimes I read about her accomplishments in the newspaper. When I arrived at Pitt, I soon discovered that she was in one of my classes! After spending some time catching up with each other, we realized that we lived in the same building, and only two floors apart! I'm not sure that this was very likely, but I would imagine it would be very hard to calculate the probability of the event considering all of the possible colleges one could choose, the buildings one could live in, and the floors within them!

(L.T.) I went back to my high school over Christmas Break to visit some of my favorite teachers with a few of my friends. When we met at the entrance, we saw that all four of us had worn a black shirt and jeans. Of course, for the duration of our visit everyone we saw asked why we were all dressed alike and if we had planned it. Truth is, we didn't plan it. It was just a coincidence.

()My coincidence happened my senior year of high school at the Edinboro Soccer Tournament at Edinboro University. The tournament was pretty exciting and our team did fairly well, but the stories off the feild definately came to be more interesting than those on it. At the tournament, our teams stayed in close quaters with the other teams so we got a good idea of the people around us. After the games were over, most of the teams, guys and girls hung out. Our team headed by me and a few friends snuck some "gatorade" into the tournament. So as we are bull snappin the night away with some other teams, we met up with some cats we played earlier in the day. They seemed cool enough and were from somewhere near Ocean City, New Jersey. Either way, when we told them where we were from, one of the kids on the team flipped out saying he hooked up with a girl from our area at the beach the previous summer. Oddly enough, my team mate and roomates then girlfriend frequently went to Ocean City, New Jersey to visit her families Condo and such. Well no sooner did my team mate look at me - did the kid say the girls name. So to be frank, one of our "opponents" hooked up with my teammates girlfriend the summer before. The moode obviously changed from a fun "getting to know you" atmosphere to a - "Im slappin the s*** out of you atmostphere." The night didn't end good for either team as some of the players were suspended for fighting. - New Kensington, PA Stats 0200

(K.D.)At a debate tournament at Wake Forest University my sophomore in high school, they called two teams to come forward to flip a coin to determine who would be affirming and who would be negating the resolution. They called Carrollton (our team name--teams go by the school they are from) and another team, and my partner and I went forward, but apparently there was another Carrollton team (they were from Carrollton, GA and we were from Carrollton, OH), and alas, it was not us they were calling. This was the first time at a national tournament this happened to us (it would not be the last), so it was completely unexpected to us, but in retrospect, probably wasn't so unlikely after all.

(E.M.) I became friends with a girl in my computer class this year at Pitt. After getting to know each other a little better, we found out that we had both actually ran against each other in the same race at a state track meet in highschool.

(A.C.) My personal coincidence story involves a fried of mine who I met when I was in fifth grade. She and I met on the first day of school and were great friends since then. The day we met, I went home after school and my mom asked me how my day was. I explained that I met a nice friend named Krista. My mother asked what her last name was, and when I told her she then asked what her parents' names are and where they live. It turned out that my parents were very good friends with her parents. They used to take us on walks together when we were babies, but they lost touch not long after that. Krista and I thought we had never met before and had no idea that we really knew each other since we were born! The occurences in my coincidence story are not so unlikely, since neither Krista's family or my family ever moved away. Since we are the same age, the chances of us meeting at some point were pretty good. However, the chances that we would become such good friends might not be so likely.

(M.B.) one night while I was sleeping, I had a dream. It was my junior year in high school when this scary dream occurred. I dreamt that one of the guys in my class got in a car accident on the highway and died. The next night I was watching the news when I saw that it came true. The guy that I dreamt had died, did die the next day in the same way I saw it, on the highway in the same car. It was very eerie and creeped me out.

(N.K.) Over break, I picked up the phone to dial my friend Ashley's house. Just as I was going to dial the number, I heard Ashley's voice saying hello! She had dialed my house at exactly the time that I was giong to dial hers. It was pretty strange, because I never heard my phone ring. Our lines must have crossed or something.

(L.G.) Since registering for next academic year's housing and dining contract has recently began, every student in each academic year gets a housing number. The lower the number, the better. Now for the Sophomore class there are approximately 5000 numbers the odds of getting a low number are quite low. Well, when the numbers were mailed it turns out that both my roomate and i got the numbers 20 and 21 respectively. No one could believe it, least of all us! Now i guess we both have great housing picks for next year.

(L.S.) The first month of my first semester, I got into an elevator in the tower's lobby. A girl whom I did not recognize but who looked vaguely familiar instantly said "Leighann? Oh my god! Hi!" Not knowing who she was and how she knew me, I went along with the conversation with feigned (and confused!) enthusiasm...all I got from her was her floor number. After I left her at the elevator and thought about it, I realized that she looked a bit like a girl I had gone to elementary school with, but who had switched to the local catholic school in the 6th grade. I went up to her floor (the next female floor above me) and looked for her name on one of the doors...sure enough, there was only one "Kathleen" on the whole floor...I tentatively knocked on the door and she answered, a grown-up version of a girl I hadn't seen or spoken to in 7 years. What are the odds?

(J.K.) "My sister who is 3 years younger than me has a friend names Anna, they have been friends since they began Kindergarten together. Anna is also much involved as a violinist with the local youth music community. Anyway, a time came when Anna was celebrating her birthday around 3rd grade (I was in 6th) and she invited my sister and me (the token older sibling invite) to the party. I attended and had a fun time. Little did I know that another person named Christine also attended the same party I did. Christine, being a flautist who was friends with Anna through the music community, would later end up dating me in high school as we now approach our 1 year anniversary. We would not be aware of this fact until one night when Anna was spending the night at my house with my sister mentioned that it was interesting how we had probably met or at least seen each other 6 years or so before." In retrospect, it does seem likely that it would happen, Erie has 100,000 residents and we have both lived there our entire life, so we were bound to know mutual friends and have crossed paths several times.

(L.T.) #1 - It's really confusing so here's a key: Me Bing - My high school best friend Dave - My high school boyfriend from junior year & my junior prom date Laura - Bing's childhood friend whom she lost track of Mike - Laura's ex boyfriend Jerry - My high school boyfriend from freshman & sophomore year I went to my junior prom with Dave who traveled abroad summer of 2000 for a music program. He was Mike's roommate while in Europe. Laura met Jerry down south during a retreat. At the prom i find my ex boyfriend taking my bestfriend's childhood's best friend. Laura, Jerry's date, is the ex girlfriend of Mike, Dave's roommate in Europe. # 2 - My roommate^o?=s has an unusual German last name. She got an e-mail from a med major from Wisconsin who has the same last name and the same birthday. He found her on face book.

(L.G.) I went to middle school in Frederick, MD with a girl named Katie Gilespie (very sweet girl). She then moved away to Connecticut and I hadnt seen in her since middle school. I then saw her in this stat class at Pitt...small world....

(K.G.) A couple years ago whenever my family and I were on vacation, we were on our way home from Myrtle Beach. At one of the many rest stops we ran into our old pastor who had moved to Ohio and who we haven't seen for 3 years. The rest stop was in North Carolina, so I figured that the chances of us running into someone we knew at that exact rest stop are slim to none. So I thought that this would be considered a coincidence.

(F.L.) There was this girl, who was a friend of a friend named, Billy from Yeadon Pennsylvania. I only met her once my freshman year and saw her in passing on campus at the time. The year had ended and I was expected in this summer program in Chicago (Medical Minority Education Program,MMEP) where I lived for six weeks in a dorm at northwestern.One day I go outside and see this girl who looked familiar. We kept starring at each other until I finally broke the silence and said "Billy," She had also been in Chicago for a program of a different kind but it was just a coincidence that I meet up with her in a city that neither one of us is from.

(K.R.) My story is rather recent as it just happened on Sunday night. I was standing in the snack shop line of my dorm, when I was admiring the shoes of the girl in front of me. Then, as I was about to tell her, she turned around and shouted my name! It was a girl named Lauren who had been my best friend from the age of 4 up to 15. We used to take dance classes together until she moved away and I never saw her anymore. Strangely enough, she was here because she is dating one of the guys directly across the hall from me from her high school. How about that for ironic? Out of all of the floors and dorms at Pitt, her boyfriend was put across from me. Needless to say, it was very fun reminiscing about our past.

(E.T.) One year when my family went to Ocean City for vacation. As my dad was walking along the beach he heard someone calling out his name. At first, he didn't think the lady was talking to him, then finally he looked at her. The woman was a secretary at the high school my dad works at. For the rest of the week, my dad could not stop talking about how much of a coincidence it was to go on vacation and see someone that he worked with. Especially since they had not previously discussed their vacation plans. In that one week, we ended up running into 3 people from our small town that happened to be friends of ours. After learning about probability, I don't think that it was really much of a coincidence. Working at a school, there are only about 9-10 weeks you could pick to go on vacation. Then, there are only so many spots that you can choose as a vacation spot. Ocean City is even a more common one because it is within a decent driving distance and had nice weather and family activities. I think that my dad was over exaggerating a little.

(S.S.) During our senior trip last summer, my friends and I coincidentally ran into other people that attended our high school. It would have been more likely for this coincidencidental event to occur if we would have gone during senior week, but because we went about three weeks after the actual "senior week" this was a coincidental experience.

(M.G.) A friend of mine from high school went to college at Washington and Jefferson, and one day she called me to say that a friend of her's was transferring from W&J to Pitt and was curious if I knew him. Now, naturally, my immediate response was sarcasm and the general response I tell most people "20,000 people go to Pitt... are you kidding." A friend down the hall had gone to semester at sea and a transfer was sent to replace him. Ironically, that same night, I went down the hall to meet him, and of course it would be the transfer from W&J, so not only did I know him, but he ended up living two doors down.

(M.B.) My personal coincidence occurred when I arrived as a freshman this year at Pitt. I happened to meet a student in one of my classes with the name Devon Beer, which happens to be the exact same name as my brother. I find it odd that there would be a person with the same first and last name as a sibling of mine, especially since there are so many other male names to choose from.

(A.B.)My famliy went on vacation to Myrtle Beach two years ago. Shortly after we arrived, we ran into my aunt and uncle. Neither my family or my aunt and uncle were aware of the other's travel plans. While it was strange enough that we ran into our relatives so far away from home, but what made it even more improbable was that my aunt and uncle live in Boston and we hadn't seen them in over four years. So for the first time that we saw my aunt and uncle in four years it was at the beach hundreds of miles from our homes, at a place that none of us had ever been to before.

(T.S.) My family took a mini educational vacation to Washington D.C. when I was younger. We had a packed full week of visiting different historical sights and were constantly on the move. On day during the trip we visited the Smithsonian museum, and were looking at the different exhibits. While at the museum we looked to our side to see our neighbors walking right towards us. Neither my family nor my neighbors had any idea that the other family was planning on being in Washington D.C. that week during the summer. The coincidence of both families not only being in Washington D.C at the same time, but to be at the same museum and walking to look at the same exhibit was not very likely to occur. The amount of things to do and places to see in Washington D.C. are countless, and the odds of a scenario happening like this one isn't great.

(G.T.) I have a cousin and his name is George Tagaris also, and one day i got a call from Nike the show company telling me I had one a contest and that i was going to get and whole Nike outtfit for free. The funny part that i never entered in any contest, but it was a free outfit so i accepted. The next week my cousin came over my house and he i showed him my new outfit and sneakers that i got. I told him that i got it through the contest, then he told me that he entered that contest and the new apparel should be his. So we called Nike and told about the mix up, but instead of giving him my stuff, i got to keep mine and because of the mix up they gave him the same stuff i got. Thats my coincidence story.

(R.O.) One day, I was heading down to work around 1:30. I went down to my car and tried to start it, but for some reason, it wasn't starting up. This also happens to be a 2003 model, and we have never had any problems with it before. My dad looked at it and decided that the noise it was making was nothing like he has ever heard before. So I got my brother to take me to work. After work, my mom came to pick me up. Before she picked me up, she decided to go to the Pretzel Shop to buy some pretzels (in Southside). She saw the city paper (which we never pick up or read at all) because it was there. She then picked me up and we went home. She looked for some jobs in it, and came across one. She applied for it, and within a few days, she was hired and already working the next week. She never looked for jobs in that paper before, and she has been looking for a job for years. So if I had driven to work that day, she would not have picked up that specific paper that we never read, and she wouldn't be working now at the place.

(M.D.) I was talking to my friends about the lottery one day and how your chances of wining were so slim. I told them that it is a waste of money and is a "tax on people who can't do math." They said you can't win if you don't play though, and in my case I told them that I never play so I'd never win. A few days later I went to the beverage store by my house to pick up some things, and I saw a second cousin of mine that i haven't seen for over a year. We talked a little and before he left he gave me a lottery ticket he just bought, and said hopefully you'll be a winner. Well, in fact, the next day I found out that I had some numbers match and I won 100 dollars. I think that this is a pretty big coincidence still. Winning the lottery is hard to do, and the fact that I said I'd never win because i don't buy the tickets make this seem like a big coincidence to me.

(K.W.) When I was a kid, I would always look for items with my first name on them. I was in search of personalized items like toothbrushes, magnets, erasers, bookmarks etc. Occasionally, I would find an item with my names spelled "Christa" rather than "Krista." However, I never did find an item with my name on it (spelled correctly), (except for the Cabbage Patch kid that my mom bought for me with my exact first name). All of that to say, that in my experience my name is less common than many other "regular American names." So, I got used to not having the same name as many others. My related coincindence story occurred in oral communications class at CCAC South Campus. On the first day of class my insructor called my name, to which I relpied "here." Then she called it a second time, thinking that she must have made a mistake. She checked the corresponding social security numbers on the role to find that there were two different SSNs corresponding with two listings of "Kirsta Wagner." So I showed her which number was mine, and she continued to think that there must be some sort of misprint. However, during the second class the other "Krista Wagner" showed up and responded to our name in unison with me. Hence, the mystery was solved. There really were two of us with the exact same first and last name in the same class of about 25 people within a school of about 1000. After many years of knowing almost noone with my exact first name and rarely finding merchandise imprinted with my name, I was in a class with someone with my exact same first and last name. Is this occurence really so unlikely? Perhaps not! Afterall, during my three decade streak of almost never encountering my name, perhaps meeting someone with my exact name was bound to happen. In other words, "coincidences" become more probable over a long time span. At least some of the possible coincidences of an individual's life are likely to occur over the course of one's life.

(J.F.) I live in the small town of Bloomsburg, PA, about 4 hours northeast of Pittsburgh. There are only a few decent restaurants in the town, and Applebee's happens to be one of them. After my high school graduation, when I went off with my friends, my parents, my sister, and some family friends decided to go to Applebee's for dessert. After they were there for a little while, their waiter, Matt, came over and asked what the event was, and when my dad told him, he asked where I would be attending school. When my dad answered Pitt, Matt replied something to the effect of, "Oh yeah? My younger brother goes to Pitt. I don't know if you've heard of him, but his name is Aaron Gray and he plays on the basketball team." My dad seemed excited to know this, and when he told me I was surprised to know that someone who plays on the basketball team, which I am a big fan of, had a connection in our little town. I figured it was an interesting coincidence. Oddly enough, when my family and I came here in June for my Pitt start session, one of the first people my dad saw in my advisor's office was Aaron Gray...it's kind of hard to miss him.

(J.V.) Last Saturday, my boyfriend and I went to go see "Million Dollar Baby." We went to the 9:25 showing, so when we got there it was really crowded. We ended up sitting in the seats in the cornor of the theatre with only two seats next to us. So we see these two people looking for a place to sit. They ened up sitting down next to us. It turns out that the girl was my best friend's roommate who I'm really good friends with. Neither of us knew that we were going to see that movie, let alone at that time. And the fact that I didn't see her until she sat down next to me just seemed weird. It was just a very coincidental meeting.

(M.K.) One day I was working at the Bon-Ton and my enlish teacher from my junior year came in to go shopping. Later that evening, my enlish teacher from my senior year came in to shop. What a coincidence that two of my enlish teachers from high school would come shop at the same place on the same day?

(N.D.) My ex-boyfriend and I were both Kenny Chesney fans, me more than him. So when we heard he was coming to town we were both very excited. I pretended like I didn't really want to go though, because I wanted to surprise him with tickets. I purchased the most expensive seats with the best view to surprise him and include in his graduation present. Turns out he had the exact same idea in mind. We ended up with 4 tickets. Luckily we could bring two of our other friends, so it worked out.

(E.B.) I'm not sure if this is a valid story since we did use the birthday example in class but..... My best friend, whose name is the same as mine, has her birthday on August 23. When I arrived at college, I met my roommate and she has since become one of my closest friends. I was surprised to learn her birthday is also August 23! Since our poll in class demonstrated this occurrence actually has a high probability, I suppose that the shared birthdays of two very good friends is actually not that surprising. Another coincidence happened recently when I picked up the phone to call a friend I hadn't talked to in a long while. As soon as he answered, he told me right as his phone was ringing, he had dialed my number to call me. What were the chances of thinking to call each other at exactly the same time, especially given that he lives in California (3 hour time difference)? Given the limited number moments in a day, and probability favoring coincidence, I'm reasoning that this wasn't that unlikely and may easily happen again!

(K.M.L.) Several years ago when my parents bought a new car, the odometer read 423. Since I was born on April 23, my mother played the daily number 423 that same day. 423 hit that night. Having the daily number being the same number of the odometer reading of a new car is not very likely.

(L.C.) My parents always plan a surprise summer vacation and never tell us where we are going until we get there. My best friend also goes on vacation every year as well. We never really ask each other where the other is going, we usually wait until after to talk about it. Well, last summer my family ended up going to Waikiki. The day we got there, we were having trouble with the key to our room, so we stood out in the hallway to wait for a hotel attendant. All of a sudden who comes walking up to the room exactly adjacent to ours but my best friend and her family. It turns out that they had scheduled their vacation on the same island, in the same hotel, in the room right next to ours! It was the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me.

(J.B.) My coincidence story is that one of my friends from high school was paired with a roommate that has the same first and middle name as me and the same birthday. We are both Jessica Ann's born on November second.

(A.G.)My mom and my aunt are twins. They have a lot of weird coincidences, but the one that comes up the most often is almost every year for my grandmother's birthday (their mother), they get her the same exact birthday card! They don't shop together, and there are millions of birthday cards out there, but somehow they seem to find the same one. My coincidence is over the summer my best friend, Stacey, and I really liked the movie Shrek 2. And our other friend worked for burger king and he always got us free toys. Well one day he both got us Shrek 2 watches. One was of puss-n-boots and the other was of donkey. Now i was a big fan of puss and Stacey loved donkey, so it worked out. So we looked at our watches and realized that the time and date was different and it needed to be reset. So when I was going to reset the date, i looked at stacey and said, "wow this is strange, the date on this watch was the date that my grandmother died" and she was like wow that's weird and so she went to reset her date and her face went a little pail and she said, "allison this date on my watch is the date that MY grandmother died" Needless to say we both were freaked out. It was just weird because donkey and puss-n-boots were a dianamic duo and so were we, and then the dates on our watches were the dates that our grandmothers had died. Weird.

(V.K.) I was in Chemistry lab last wednesday. My lab partner and I were discussing when our birthdays were. He asked me what month mine was in and I told him it was in august. He then guessed that my birthday was august 7th, I was very surprised because he guessed exactly right! I had never told him what day or month my birthday was prior to that conversation. I asked him "how did you know?" and he said that his brother's birthday was that same day. what a coincidence!! I dont think that another person's birthday being the same as mine is a coincidece or an unlikely occurence. However, the fact that my lab partner guessed my birthday on the first try and that his brother's birthday is the same as mine is kind of a chance happening.

(L.H.) I have a coincidence to tell you about! I moved to college not knowing my roommate beforehand. As it turns out, my best friend from home (who now goes to Penn State), her roommate at PSU is best friends with my roommate! We were so shocked to figure this out, it's a strange, yet small world!

(M.O.) My dad (Steve Oas) went to a buisness cooncention and met a man on the floor whose name was also "Steve Oas"(it was on his nametag). The namme "Oas" is strange in the U.S., but very common in Norway.

(A.A.) My two sisters (Shannon and Malinda) are three years apart, but it seems like they're either in silent competition with each other or they must plan their lives accordingly. For instance, when Shannon got married, Malinda got married the following year. Then they were both pregnant at the same time, Malinda a few months before. Malinda's first child was a girl and a couple of months later Shannon's was too. Then they both had a baby boy a year apart. And they both lived in N.J. Everything was a coincidence and nothing was planned, everything just occur spontaneously.

(R.K.) This is Ryan Kocak from your MWF 12:00 statistics 200 class. My coincidence is that everytime I go to the mall I see someone I know. It's not really that ridiculous because usually it is a kid and we always have off school at the same time. Plus, with all of the different aquaintances I have I'm bound to see atleast one, especially because it is such a popular place to go.

(B.R.) My roommate and I were messing around on the computer one night taking quizzes that are suppost to determine your future about 2 weeks ago. One quiz was suppost to determine who and when you would get married based on the information asked for, which was your name and sex. When I put my boyfriends complete name in and his sex as male my first name came up as the person he was going to marry, with the correct spelling as well. His complete name had to be put in and his sex had to be reported as male, not boy for my name to come up. My name came up everytime we did this same test. Although these quizzes are completely random, I feel that this is very coincidental due to the fact that I had to put no information in about myself. The only thing asked for was name and gender for this quiz specifically.

In tenth grade, which is what year my high school started, the first day of health class, we were to pair up with someone and answer a whole bunch of questions. I guess the point was to really get to know one another. So, I just turned to the girl sitting next to me who was just as unexcited about this project as I was. We began to answer the questions, and shockingly began to get along really well. During conversation, for some reason, our birthdays came up and to our even greater surprise we had the same birthday. I had never found someone with the same birthday as me before. We were both extremely excited and that's basically where it started. We remained best friends for a little over a year or so, but you know how high school goes, sometimes even the most special things don't last that long.

(R.W.) Here is my coincidence story: My boyfriend and father share not only the same name, Robert Wilson (which I know is not that uncommon of a name) but also the same birthday- June 25th. Having either the same first or last name as my father seems like it could be quite common, since they are both very common names, but sharing the same first and last name and birthday seems quite unlikely to me.

(S.N.) When I first came to Pitt for Pittstart I didn't know anyone. As I was registering I saw this really cute guy. I was going to say hi because he wasn't with anyone either, but I had to run to an orientation. I kept an eye out for him the whole day and was pretty sad when I didn't see him at all. I spent the night in Bouquet Gardens and the next morning we were to turn our room keys within a 3 hour time slot. I ran down without my roommates and turned in my key at the designated front desk, as i turned around there was the cute guy standing right in behind me! I though, " wow what are the chances of him turning in his key at the same time as me when there are 1000 people here and 3 different areas to turn in keys!" We did end up talking and we've been dating for 2 years. I look at it as lucky coincidence.

(J.L.) I have a pretty funny conincidence story as well. Two years ago my parents and I went to New York city. We were in Times Square and saw a bar that was named O'Lunney's Pub. Our last name is Lunney and when my great grandfather came to the US from Ireland he dropped the O...it was originally O'Lunney. We went in and sat down and got something to eat. When my dad got his bill, the manager came out with it and said that he had a second cousin named Bill Lunney he hadnt seen in a while. We figured out that my dad wasn't the same Bill Lunney as his cousin, but, he did give us our food for free. The owner figured we must be related somewhere down the line!! Now everytime we go to NYC we go there and eat to say hi.

(L.C.) My conditional experience is that when I got to clinical one day, the nurse i was with had the same first and middle name as me, Lauren Elizabeth!

(A.G.) In July I came to my PittStart session and the first part of the schedule was taking placement exams. After that, we were basically told to wander around and find an activity to get involved in, like playing volleyball or pool. I was walking along Forbes when I met a group of about 10 people and started talking to one of them. She introduced herself by saying, "I'm Allison, but my friends call me Allie G," and I was shocked because I have the same name/nickname! We then found out that we were actually roommates for that night, and this coincidence of meeting each other on the streets out of the 300 people at PittStart was the start of a great friendship.

(A.R.) I guess the only conincidence that I can think of is that my boyfriend has an uncle (NOT blood related) that has the same exact name as me, Nikki Rosato--spelled the same exact way.

(Z.L.) This story is about my mom actually. She called my dad while he was away on business and asked to be connected to Mr. Langer's room. When she was, a woman answered the phone. My mom freaked out and started asking her all these questions such as why she was in my dad's hotel room. It turned out, the hotel reception had connected her to the wrong room. My dad found this story hilarious, as did I, but my mom did not think it was so funny.

(S.D.) Everyone in my family still talks about this coincidence today...it is very strange. My family and I were in New Orleans during Mardi Gras in 2002 because my cousin was getting married in Baton Rouge, which is only a few miles away. We flew down a few days early to check out the city and one morning, we were in the french quarters open air market. It is huge and it takes up about 5 blocks or so. Anyway, we were in this one section of it, looking at souveniers and suddenly, we hear a man yell out my brothers name. We turned around, and my uncle was standing there waving to us! He and his family were supposed to be in town too, but they were not supposed to be there for two more days. It was just too weird that they found us out of all the people in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, out of all the places we might have been, and out of all the areas in the market we could have been at that time. It was too bizzare.

(R.H.) My father was in the military a long time ago. He was stationed in Turkey as a doctor, but was relocated to a small town in Germany. While in this town he met a German woman who is now his wife/my mother. The man responsible for my fathers relocation (David Pfaff) ended up living in the same city (Marietta, Ohio) that my father and mother moved to when they came back to the states. David also married a German woman while in the service. This is where my family as well as the Pfaff's still live today, and my mother and David's wife are very good friends to this day. I'm not sure but the odds of them moving to the same small city of Marietta, Ohio couldn't have been very good!

(K.S.) My dorm room is located in a suite with 3 other double rooms. When I moved in, I found the suite door with my name on it. All the doors in the hall had the names of the occupants printed on a sheet of paper with a graphic of a state quarter (quarter as in 25 cents) on it. The RA had done this to help us out. In any case, my name tag had the Pennsylvania quarter on it, so I assumed he had used the quarter of the state we came from, since I am from PA. To back up this idea, I noticed that my roommate's name tag had the New Jersey quarter on it, and I knew that she is from New Jersey. I looked at the other names on the door. They had quarters from Iowa, Texas, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, and Florida. What a wide-spread group...or so I thought. It ended up that the RA had randomly chosen states for each name, as he didn't know where we were from. I thought it was a coincidence that not only I got the correct state, but my roommate also got the correct state, while our other suitemates and most of the rest of the floor did not.

(K.W.) Over the summer, I had been working at the local ice cream shop. Usually, if it was raining the manager would call and notify me not to come in due to the weather. On one particular day, when I was scheduled to work, the weather happened to be beautiful. Throughout the entire day I kept wishing that it would rain. So roughly an hour before I had to go to work, out of no where rain started pouring down, and just like I had wished for the manager called to let me know not to come in. This particular occurrence maybe wasn't really so unlikely. Maybe, if I would have watched the news that day, I would have known the weatherman was predicting rain.

(L.M.) At two different swim meets I swam the 100 freestyle. For both races I swam the exact same time. Both swims were 0:54.56. There are many elements that go into swimming a race and to think that down to the hundreth of a second the time for each race was the same to me seems to be a coincidence.

(M.S.) My father and I got into a huge fight about what we should get for my mother for her birthday. I wanted to get her a pair of earings and my dad wanted to get her a new robe. After arguing for several minutes we decided to go shopping seperate. Before I left however, I asked my mom what she would really like. She told me that she had always wanted a new bracelet from a little store in Westmoreland Mall. I decided that I was one up on my father and went to the store. I got her the bracelet and wrapped it. The next day as we gave my mother the gifts we had purchased for her my dad had a strange look on his face as he saw my mother open my gift. "You copied my gift," he yelled. We had gotten my mother the same gift. She never told him that she wanted that bracelet but he was at the mall and the bracelet "caught his eye." I guess my parents are match made in heaven, but wow what a coincidence.

(R.A.) My coincidence story is that one time I was in the Siesta Keys in Florida for vacation. One night on vacation me and my family were talking about Dick Vitale, the basketball announcer. The next morning we went to breakfast at The Broken Egg and he sat at the table behind us. Him being there wasn't unlikely because he lives in the Siesta Keys and The Broken Egg is his favorite restaurant. It was a coincidence that we were talking about him the night before though.

(C.F.) Beginning in eleventh grade, every morning on our morning television broadcast, the Student Council would wish people a "Happy Birthday!". I had gone to school with most of these people since seventh grade and with some since kindergarten. But it was not until March of my junior year that I realized that I shared a birthday with two other girls in my class, one of which I had known since elementary school. I found that pretty strange. But now knowing the statistical probability of this occurring, I realize it really isn't that rare. I graduated with nearly 700 other people which greatly increased the odds. In reality, with that great a sample size it was possible to have more than just three people born on the same day.

(E.L.) It was the summer of 2000. My family and I were making our annual trip to Wildwood, New Jersey. During the drive to the beach my mother asked me if i had been keeping in touch with Maxine, a girl that used it be on my club swim team, (and at one point was one of my best friends). I thought for a minute and realized it had been over 2 years since i had any contact with her. When she first quite swimming 4 years prior, we kept in contact over the telephone but never actually got together in person. I decided that when i got home from the beach i was going to give her a call and see if she wanted to go out to lunch and catch up. The more i thought about all the fun times we had together the more i missed her and couldn't wait to give her a call. The first morning we were at the beach, following tradition, we went for a bike ride on the boardwalk. We stoped at our regular spot for orange juice and a doughnut to my amazment, there was Maxine and her father sitting eating doughnuts. I couldn't hide my excitement for seeing her. I told her all about my conversation with my mom the day before about how i was eager to call her and get together. We exchanged out cell phone numbers and got together later that week down at the beach. To this day we still keep in contact online. I don't think this coinsidence was extremely out of the ordinary because Wilwood, NJ is a very popular vaction spot for people that live in my area. However it was very unusual that we were at the exact same breakfast shop on the boardwalk at the exact same time. So would would say it was a coinsidence and a very pleasant and unexpected suprise!

(M.S.) When I was in 8th grade, my good friend and her dad took my father and I to a Penn State football game. Over 100,000 people go to those games, but as soon as I walked through the turnstiles, I heard a shout and my dad's friend from college was yelling to him. The most ironic part is that they went to Pitt. So, two Pitt Panthers ran into each other in a crowd of about 10,000 Penn State fans.

(H.A.) This is not a personal story because i wasn't the main character of it. One day i was sitting with a friend of mine when she told me about her funny experience at a wedding ceremony. The story begins when she entered the place with her long red dress (as i remember, it was a strapless dress with crystal stones on the sides- a rarely found dress!) To her shock, the bride's best friend was wearing the same exact dress! (same color and same details) They both stood there staring at each other for few minutes until the bride started laughing! I wouldn't like it if i was in her situation!

(K.S.) When I was about 10 years old, I went to a camp over the summer for about a week in Pennsylvania. But since I am from Cleveland, Ohio, I didn^o?=t know anyone there. I didn^o?=t really make any friends there until the last day. I remember talking to one of the girls there for a long time and doing most of the activities with her. At the end of camp when it was time to leave, I was so sad because I was sure that I^o?=d never see her again. She lived no where near me. So, about a week after I was home from camp I was playing in my back yard with my sister. We climbed into our tree house where we could see clearly over our neighbor^o?=s fence. They happened to be having some big get together that day. As I was looking around I saw a familiar face. When I realized it was my friend from camp I yelled out her name and she looked at me with some confusion at first but then realized who I was. After talking to her for a while, it turns out that her grandparents are my neighbors. So now, every time she comes to visit them she stops by to say hello.

(M.B.) I was sitting at home on a Sunday night flipping through the television stations. I came across a movie that my friend and I used to watch all the time together and it always made me think of her. Since I hadn't talked to her in a long time I decided to call her to see how she was doing. I picked up the phone but there was no dial tone. As I was just about to put the receiver down, I heard "Hello?" It was her. I picked up the phone at the exact moment she called, and as it turns out, she was calling to tell me about the exact same movie she was watching on TV. The occurance of this happening is HIGHLY unlikely. Of the 86,400 seconds in a day, she called me at the EXACT time I was going to call her, and of the over 50 channels on basic cable, she happened to be watching the exact same thing as me.

(M.O.) My aunt had had 14 miscarriges and was frustrated and afraid she would never conceive. She cried on her grandmothers lap, who was on her deathbed, about the bleak possibility of ever having children. her grandmother told her that when she got to heaven she would send her down a little princess. Two years later, my aunt had already had a boy, but gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on her Grandmothers birthday.

(S.G.) I am a member of a nation wide organization called Sankofa. Recently we went on a retreat with the Sankofa member from New York (my home town). I met another Woman named Sheba. She and I shared similar characteristics, same complexion, we both had natural hair and grew up in Brooklyn.

(K.S.) When I was a junior is high school, I was making my rounds to possible colleges that I was thinking about applying to. I was on a college visit at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when I ran into a friend of mine from back home. He was two years older than myself, and he was attending UNC. I knew that he went there but I hadn't called him to tell him I was coming down since we were not very close. I found it highly unlikely to run into the only person I knew that went to UNC given the size of the campus and the size of the student body (approximately 15,000). For us to be in the same vicinity at the same time was highly unlikely, in my opinion.

(C.O.) A coincidence that happened to me involved and an RA at Sutherland. I am an RA at Sutherland and at the beginnin of this semester I decided to get some posters for my room. Among the posters was a poster of Malcolm X, which I put up on my wall at a specific spot by itself. Three weeks into the school year, I went up to the room of the RA that lives right above me. Her room is in the same place as mine and I found it coincidental that she has the same poster of Malcolm X and she has it up on her wall at the same exact spot as me. I have seven other posters in my room that could have gone on the spot and she has three other posters in her room. so it is a big coincidence for me. Out of all the students that live on campus and got accepted to be an RA, for us to be in the same building and live right on top of each other and then to have the same poster at the same exact spot seems to be a real coincidence for me.

(L.F.) In May of senior year of high school my family and I began to send out invitations to my high school graduation party. As we began to search out the addresses of our guest I noticed that I didn't have the address to one of my good friends from middle school. She moved to Delaware from Philadelphia where I live and I never got around to getting her new address. After trying to call and finding out that the number had been changed, I started to worry that I wouldn't be able to contact her in time to come to my party. The next day while shopping at T.J. Maxx in Philadelphia someone tapped me on my shoulder and when I turned around it was my friend from middle school. I believe this was indeed unlikely that we ran into each other. The places she could have been and the places I could have been are infinite

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