This past Friday I took a trip to the local Spec's liquor store. As soon as I stepped through the doors, I noticed someone who looked alot like my ex g/f 8 years ago. And sure enough, it was. Now, if she was still living in Houston this wouldn't be such a big deal. She actually lives in Denver and was just in town to visit and celebrate new years. It was her first time in Houston in 4 years. This incident only reminded me of another "small world" moment i encountered. Nine years ago, while driving back home from California we stopped at a gas station in New Mexico. While pumping gas, a white van turns into the station. I didn't think anything of it, until someone stepped out and yelled my name. I was like, WTF. This was my neighbor 2 houses away who was heading to Las Vegas.
My wife and I met after college in New Mexico, even though we were at Tech at the same time and knew some of the same people. We were on a train in Italy, and passed a blond guy. After we got to our cabin, I asked my wife if she had noticed him and if he looked familiar to her also. We struggled for a while, then realized he was just one of those guys that you see on campus and at parties but never meet...and oddly...we both recognized him and neither of us had ever met him. The funny part...I appraoched him and asked him: 'Did you go to Texas Tech?', and his response was classic: 'Does it show?' . . .
The guitar player in my band went to a rival high school from mine. We had never met until probably 3 years ago. We got to talking and found out that not only had he dated my cousin in high school, but that he was dating (and is now married to) a girl who was in my class at my high school. She sat next to me in algebra.
It's not my "best" but it is a "small world" story: My wife used to date this *ssh*l* of a guy who was good if not best friends with my brother in high school when I got to the U.S., and she broke it off with him to be with me. I hate his guts maybe worse than I hate Casserly. Another: Also, my wife's good friend from high school got married three years ago to a guy I knew in middle school whom I hadn't seen in 15 years. My daughters' story: While vacationing in Acapulco this past November with her grandparents, my oldest daughter told me that one of her friends from 1st grade was with her parents in the same hotel.
There's a few. Back in 1990 when we evacuated Saudi Arabia because of the Gulf War, I saw my best friend from there in Houston inside the Galleria. Back in 2004 I literally bumped into a chick (in College Station) that I knew that attended my Boarding school in SWITZERLAND and it only had 300 students!
This didn't happen to me, but I thought it was pretty funny: My sister moved from Texas to go to college in Idaho in '93. On a 3-day weekend, she and her boyfriend decided to go on a road trip to California. One evening, they decided to take a nice, romantic walk on the beach. As they were walking, they ended up at a boardwalk, so they decided to walk out to the edge of it and watch the sunset. When they got to the railing at the tip of the pier, there was another couple snuggling together. It turns out that the guy was one of our good friends growing up in Houston, but worse than that, he was cousins with my sister's ex-boyfriend, who she had "Dear John-ed" from college to go out with this other guy.
My father grew up in Davenport, Iowa, attended Davenport Assumption High School and University of Iowa Law School. He moved to Houston after WWII where he met my mother. I met my wife in Houston after she graduated from University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. We moved back to her hometown area in '93, less than 40 miles from where my father grew up. My oldest daughter played 2 1/2 years for Davenport Assumption's AAU basketball feeder program. My father's father was a pharmacist.
I once was in a massage parlor in Thailand, and I happened to see my dad there. Kind of akward to say the least.
I once hiked a volcano in Guatemala with a guy from Switzerland who had lived in Vancouver (my home) for 6 months while he worked for my best friends Dad. I watched hockey games at a bar in Guatemala beside a guy from the States who had used to live in Canada and my uncle was his old doctor from when he lived in Quesnel, British Columbia.
I went to a downtown sports bar in Minneapolis to watch the 2004 Cal-USC game and met another guy from Cal who happened to graduate 2 years behind me in the same major. What was even more interesting was he knew who I was but unfortunately I didn't remember him. A few months ago I went on a blind date and my date said she lived next door to an architect who I had TA'ed in gradschool but hadn't seen since. Two days later I run into my former student at Home Depot.
I was at the gym about a week ago going through my workout and this guy is in there with his trainer on the bench talking about a tennis tourney he's playing really soon. His voice sounds very familiar so I turn around and sure enough it's Andy Roddick.
I had I good friend run into another good friend of mine in Guatemala at a bar during the 1995 NBA Finals. They had never met before. One friend overheard the other group talking about Clear Lake so he asked them if they knew "MR. MEOWGI" and they said yes (we went to high school together and we good friends)...
I found out one of my friends in college, who eventually became my roommate, was a distant cousin. I also found out that an earlier roommate was the son of someone who had worked together with my mom at a bank. They had been sending us christmas cards for over 15 years! After graduation, we went our separate paths, but then he transferred to my law school. Do I win?
I met my wife here in New York at an audition. We both grew up in Spring not 5 miles from each other. She went to Klien and I went to Spring. And she dated one of my best friends in college. In fact. we actually have figured out that we had both been in the same house, during parties in Houston over 12 years ago and didn't meet until New York.
I can top that. I don't follow Women's soccer very much but I watched the 2000 Women's World Cup and I remember thinking one of those girls playing on the US Team looks really familiar. As it turns out Brandi Chastain lived in the same dorm as me when I was a freshman at Cal. I didn't know her very well but was good friends with her roommate and one time when I passed out, from studying so hard of course , my friend and some others in the dorm had dumped me in Brandi Chastain's bed. So obviously when she took her top off at the end of the game that confirmed who she was to me. (Just kidding on that last sentence. She was out of town at the time playing a soccer tournament.)
