Coincidences

Mary just wrote me the vignette below. She kept getting an invoice that wasn't hers as she explains:

Do you remember I was getting bills from the Sacramento Utility District (SMUD) and I finally verified it was legit and I wrote them Customerservice@smud or something like that, twice with no result. Finally I just labelled it spam so it didn't annoy me. Come to find out the guy sitting next to me is from SMUD and is responsible for the emails, at least in part. He said to call customer service because they are very responsive. I decided to leave it as spam.

That seems like such an amazing coincidence and it reminds me of one that happened to me. I was in Kansas City for a Western history conference. It was a year or so after 9/11 and I had just read a long article in Vanity Fair about the event. I can't remember how I brought it up, but I mentioned the article, not knowing at all the couple sitting next to me. I told them about the article and this particularly tragic part about some people who worked for Deutsche Bank. The couple looked at me like I was a ghost. Turned out the man worked for Deutsche Bank and was in the building that day. I remember the woman getting all New Agey on me and saying, "You were put here to give him a message."

Well, I had no idea what that message may be. I said maybe the message was in the article and volunteered to bring it to their hotel room which I did.