What are coincidences? Are they truly random events that have a personal meaning to us so that we connect two events and think “Oh wow! What a coincidence”? Or as my mathematician friends will undoubtedly say, is there a statistical probability that two seemingly random events will overlap at a specific time? I don’t even know if that syntax is correct. But the math people will know what I mean. Other people will say it is fate or the hand of God.
All I know is that I had a doozy on Saturday.
Hairdressers, bartenders and therapists have a lot in common. I wonder what would happen if a person’s hairdresser, bartender and therapist got together to swap stories. Had they all heard the same story? Because, face it, with all three of the above, we say way more than we would if we were talking to anyone else in our lives.
On Saturday morning, I went to the hairdressers. I absolutely hate to be touched, unless I’m in control of the touching, so I always cut my own hair. Somewhat successfully, if you squint while looking at me. 
I don’t even remember when I last went to a hairdresser or salon. Oh, maybe when I was recovering from shoulder surgery and couldn’t do my hair myself.
Without an appointment, I went to a Super Cut in a strip mall in my town. I knew they would be fast and it wouldn’t be too expensive. It wasn’t the money that bothered me, but if I had an expensive stylist, they would probably touch my hair longer.
I was right; the wait wasn’t long. A woman, who was about my age, walked up to greet me as her client was leaving. The other hairdressers were all attending to other people. She seemed very nice and was chatting away to me while putting the towel and plastic cape around my neck and shoulders. She mentioned that she was supposed to be in Alaska for a niece’s wedding but was unable to go, so she was working as usual. If you live in New York, you can probably count the number of people you know who have ever been to Alaska on one hand. And the people I know who have been, have gone on cruises.
I told her that I was born in Alaska. She said that she was born in Alaska. WHAT???
I said I was born in Anchorage. She said that she was born in Anchorage.
I said that I was born at Elmendorf Air Force Base.
She said that she was born at Elmendorf Air Force Base.
We were getting glances from the other clients. We did not share the same birthday, but other than that, this is the mother of all coincidences. The confluence of events that caused me to procrastinate about getting my hair done until the last minute before a TV taping, of all things. That I dodged into this salon instead of the more “upscale” one that I thought I was going to have to endure. The fact that this woman did not go to her niece’s wedding in Alaska and felt the need to share that information. That of the four women working there that day, this particular woman was done with her previous client just as I was the next person waiting.
All of these events led to a meeting and a conversation between two women whose fathers were stationed at Elmendorf AFB, just outside of Anchorage, Alaska, in the early to mid-1950s and were born at the same hospital. And this meeting took place in a hair salon in Putnam County, NY in 2016. I told her the short version of my life story and she told me hers. Random? Fate? Hand of God?
Hairdressers and coincidences. A great combination.
saneteachers 
Wow, it really is a small world. What a wonderful coincidence.
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It was crazy. She did a good job on my hair, too, lol.
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A bonus for sure! And something to talk about. For an introvert, that’s a win, win, win.
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Absolutely. But if you mean me, I’ve the farthest thing there can be from an introvert. My husband gets annoyed because I strike up conversations with people in the grocery store, restaurants, wherever we are. He says “Do you talk to EVERYONE?” Yes. Yes I do.
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Oops, my bad. I thought your aversion to the styling salon might be due to introversion like mine. I do NOT talk to everyone. 😉
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No, I don’t like to be touched. I even talk in my sleep. Talk, talk, talk. One of my students told me a few weeks ago “I’m sick of hearing your voice!” Privately, I thought that was something my husband would say. But for his rudeness they gave him in-school suspension. Now he still thinks it, I’m sure, but hasn’t said it aloud again, lol.
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I can’t imagine saying that to a teacher! (Or anyone.) If one of my sons said that, they’d be in a heap of trouble. Luckily, I know they wouldn’t.
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Yes, he is unique. None of my other students would ever say that. And obviously I don’t lecture often in my class; they have lots of activities. But my quirky humor did make me think of my husband who is as quiet as I am talkative.
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I’ve had many deja vus throughout my life. A certain conversation I have, a place I’m visiting, or an event occuring that I’m 95 per cent sure has taken place in the past. Some say there are so coincidences (namely John Edwards), but I think otherwise.
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I’ve read that deja vu is because one side of your brain processes an event a nanosecond before the other side. I don’t know if this is true or not, but seems plausible. Thank you for reading and commenting on this blog!
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A hairdresser, a bartender and a therapist walk onto an Air Force base in Alaska. You finish it.
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…And one says “Hey, did you hear the one about the moose?” And the pilots respond “All the time! It’s unBEARable. We don’t like hangars-on.”
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Ok. I learned my lesson. Never challenge a satirical writer to write anything. It opuns up all kinds of possibilities. And should it be hangars-on? LOL.
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Haha. And I was on such a roll, thinking myself oh so witty, that this little English teacher here made a grammatical gaffe! Thank you and I quickly opuned, edited and corrected it. Now I can fly away, into the wild blue yonder. Or is it wide, blue yonder? Let’s ponder. See what you started?
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I can’t help it. I love you and your stuff so much. PS I am constantly inquiring of the sages at The Grammarist website. Language and humor are art forms, and you command them both real good. Ok. I’m done.
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Thank you so much. I truly appreciate your remarks. I always want to write to them and say “Shouldn’t you be The Grammarians?” I have looked that up and forget the answer. Grammarian sounds better. A Grammarian ethes into a website and says……
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Cave ab homine unius libri.
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This language major here does not know latin. Let me take a stab at “All cave dwelling homonyms are united in library books.” Try as I might, I couldn’t get one of those words to turn itself into a homonym. I’m getting tired, lol.
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Good night my dear. There’s always tomorrow.
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Love this! I’ve had lots of crazy ones in the most unusual circumstances. I actually developed a “feel” for when something bizarre like this was going to happen, but that was when I was doing lots and lots of Buddhist chanting. Yup. I’ll just leave it at that, ’cause I’m a very rational person…
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Now to add to the crazy coincidences, this woman went to Tibet on occasions and worked with Buddhist monks. So there you go again.
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hahaha lucky her! Btw I remembered that two of my pretty remarkable coincidences happened in transit in … Anchorage airport. Better if we move on 🙂
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Too much. We were obviously separated at birth.
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In many ways, this is all very natural. Notice how the process worked? The hairdresser mentioned a fact and you drew a connection, both of you then worked to draw more connections. It is not the connections that are important but rather that we work to connect ourselves to others. It says something about us – something wonderful.
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That’s lovely. Still crazy, though. We need “6 degrees from Iowa.”
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Wow! Hand fo God, definitely. I bet you go back to this hair salon again in the future.
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In Canada, we spell “of” as “fo”.
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I thought you were being ghetto, yo.
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Definitely. But no stalking is involved.
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I love these serendipitous moments. I feel that it is the Universe/ God attempting to teach us something, and I should pay close attention. PS Thanks for the follow!
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I look forward to reading more of your blogs and am very happy to have you visiting and reading my posts 🙂
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Thanks Barb! The feeling is mutual! 🙂
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Reblogged this on Finding Myself Through Writing and commented:
You run across all kinds of people on WordPress and is it a coincidence or fate, or the hand of God? Barbara wonders this as I do. I’m just glad we found each other, sharing the same last name, though probably not related, and sharing some Alaska roots. How many times do these coincidences crop up in your life? Thanks for finding me Barbara! ~Elle
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