Can we have a thread where we share unlikely but true stories?

[letsgowiththat]

I'll start.

My (non English speaking) DGF received an email (in English) from the solicitor of a man who claimed to be the son of a long lost relative from Africa claiming he was basically of princely status and there was an inheritance waiting for my DGF and his siblings.
So basically like the Nigerian prince scam.

Except it was all true and it was a relative who escaped my DGFs home country as he did not want to be drafted into the war and ended up never contacting anyone again and building a small empire in Africa, getting married (multiple times) and having DCs. He willed a small part of his accounts to my DGFs by then deceased mother who was his cousin and then it got passed down and split between my DGF and his siblings by default. Not life changing money but one of our favourite stories to tell!

The majority of the emails was done through google translate as well

Does anyone have any "sounds like a lie but is true" stories they'd like to share?

My DF lives in a tiny town in USA but comes from a small town in UK. He was at his lake cabin going fishing in a tiny little hamlet type place in the boonies and bumped into a British woman.... She came from the same hometown in the UK as he did!!

@RichardMarxisinnocent I too hadn't a clue what Contiki meant but upon checking it seems the OP just went on holiday!

Contiki is a tour company that caters to 18- to 35-year-olds. It operates tours in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America, South America, Africa, Middle East, and Asia.

@Sunny4876

A new girl started in Dds class,they became fast friends,she came to our house a few times and we met up with her mum and sibling in the park,got on really well. One day the girl was at our house again but this time the mum text to say the girls stepfather would be picking her up this time. My Dds older half brother(Dad's side) turns up,who I had only ever seen a photo of,he's 30,she's 8. Long story short they stay in contact and my Dd is now an Auntie to a step niece (who is also slightly older and her best friend)step nephew and a newborn niece.

@Sunny4876 did you have a thread about this at the time? I'm sure I remember a something similar.

@daisychain01 hmm what scam do you think will be bourne from this thread?! Wally.

A few years ago my eldest daughter's school decided to choose Animal Farm as a GCSE text for the first time in 20 years. The book she was given by her class teacher was mine from the last time they used them, complete with my name in the front and all my notes. She burst out laughing, had to tell the whole class why, and the teacher sent the book home as a gift for me. She got a brand new copy!

@Baxterbear - I think it stands for Dear Grandfather. Most acronyms for relatives start with a D on here. So husband would be DH. Which can also obviously stand for d*ck head, but that’s also often quite apt..

[quote JustNotFunAnymore]**@Eminybob* My friend has a cousin with the surname “Tracy” and his wife is called Tracy so when they married she became Tracy Tracy and kept it and goes by that name!*

I used to work with a Tracy Tracy many years ago![/quote]
I wonder if you both know the same Tracy Tracy!?! Now THAT would be extremely wEiRd...!

[quote ThatOtherPoster]**@Baxterbear* - I think it stands for Dear Grandfather. Most acronyms for relatives start with a D on here. So husband would be DH. Which can also obviously stand for dck head, but that’s also often quite apt..[/quote]
@ThatOtherPoster thank you!! I'd tried looking it up online but somehow "Don't Give a Fuk" didn't seem quite right! Your "dckhead" comment made me chuckle...😂

Does this count? It fitted nicely until I had a third child, we had a weird pattern going on with birthdays. DS2 is 27th, I'm 28th, DH is 29th and DS1 is 30th, then DD came along on the 7th and ruined the pattern, but I'll forgive her ---- We also got married on 10/11/12 (it was the last day the venue had free for that year when we booked) but a bit of a weird coincidence with the consecutive numbers there.

On my Uni course in the UK there were 50 students. 3 of us went on to marry someone from the same small town in country Australia.

I’ve lived in the same house for 32 years, in a little row of 5 terraced cottages. Back in the late 90’s one of my neighbours in the cottage at the end split up with his wife and had to give up/rehome his dog due to work commitments, was out of the house 12-14 hours per day, and the ex-wife didn’t want the dog, I took the dog into my home, I had 5 cats at the time. That neighbour then moved away. The next owners of the cottage also split up after living there for a few years, they had a dog that needed a new home too. I took that one in as well. Both dogs lived with me until they passed away at 14 & 15 years old.
Maybe the cottage was jinxed because two couples had split up but, it was a blessing for me because I had the chance to share my life with two gorgeous dogs, still miss them today, even though I’ve had & still have rescued dogs since.

We called into a small country pub in SW Cornwall for a coffee on a winter morning. There was only one other person in the bar so we started chatting. He told us he was from New Mexico. Like an idiot I said, 'Oh we know someone from there.' It turned out that he'd been a good friend of her mother at one time but hadn't seen our friend since she was a small child.

Grandfather

When I was around 7, we had a new teacher at school. She asked us to draw some pictures of our families, house, pets, etc. to get to know us.

I showed her a picture of my house and she looked rather shocked. I said the road I lived on and she said 'No 8?'

She'd lived there in the 1960s as a child.

I was given the register for my new class, glanced through it and realised one of the children lived in my Mum's childhood home.

@ForwardRanger totally random! I bet it never happens to me ever again

Not long ago, I was driving along in my hometown and the local radio station had a piece on 'guess how do you pronounce this surname', one was a Russian surname. It was the same surname as a girl I worked with when I was a teenager, who I hadn't thought of for years and I wondered what she was up to now.

Next turning I took, I saw her waiting by the bus stop

Oh mines not as good as some on here but very 'small world'.

When I was about 17 I worked in a big city hotel in the restaurant for a few months. Left to move to another city and didn't keep in touch with any of the staff there.

3 years later I moved to Jersey for a summer job in a hotel. On arrival I was introduced to the staff and couldn't shake the feeling that I recognised one of the KPs. It took us a day or two to work out that we'd both worked at the same hotel in our home city at the same time.

Even better he'd attracted the same (not very flattering) nickname with his colleagues at both hotels. We've since randomly worked together at another two places, although both in Jersey so less of a coincidence.

Changed my mobile contract and number recently to find the last 6 digits are my parents old land line number from 1995 before we got diamond cable. Before they added a 9 to a number and it was just 6 numbers

Another Ebay story.
Several years ago I sold some small items - maybe CD's - that could fit into a small envelope. A bidder bought one on Bank Holiday Saturday. I had time to walk to our local post office (about 20 mins) before it shut.

When I checked his address he lived in a house that I had to walk past to get to the PO! I gathered up enough change to refund his postage, popped it into the envelope with a note, walked to his house and posted the envelope through his door.

He left me excellent feedback.

Just thought of another one.

When I was 12/13 I was given a book called The Young Lady’s Journal (by an optimistic relative!). It was about manners and etiquette, housekeeping and budgeting, different types of careers etc. At the back was a section you could write in about your goals and how you hoped your life would turn out. I’d forgotten about this book until my mother gave to me when I was in my mid 30’s after clearing out her attic.

I’d written in it that I hoped to marry a man with black hair and brown eyes, and have 3 brown eyed children, a girl and two boys (in that order). I wanted to work in London as a ‘business woman’ and also live in America.

It had actually all come to pass except I only went to America on holiday but ended up living in Canada (close enough). I managed to move to London by pure chance in my early 20’s as I had no means to move there and worked in some big name accounting firms and investment banks. Well beyond the normal reach of someone from my background and my level of education (not encouraged in my family for girls).

The oddest thing though was that I’d only been attracted to blue eyed blonde guys through my teens and early 20’s until I met black haired, brown eyed DH and it was love at first sight. We had a brown eyed girl, sadly lost our 2nd one at birth, then went on to have twin brown eyed boys. They were conceived on what would have been the due date of the baby girl we’d lost who was born 6 weeks prematurely, according to their dating scan, so they probably wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t lost her. We did later have another brown eyed boy but you could technically say the twins, who are complete yin and yang count as 1 iykwim!

Pretty mind blowing to read what I’d written over 20 years later. I should have written that I wanted to be a millionaire too obviously .

Following on; I've always seemed to have a thing for manifesting people. I'll think about someone I haven't seen for ages and then BAM they appear in front of me.

It's not always reliable though.. I've been thinking about Ryan Gosling for years and nothing

I recognized a new person in my workplace but couldn't place him. Months later we got together and he told me where he had grown up. I mentioned I only new one street in the area as my Auntie lived there "Collins Drive". He mentioned he had lived there at number 15. My Auntie and cousin had lived there at the same time at 17. He new them well and new my Grandma too. He remembered when my Grans sister visited from Oz and his mum had sent them home with some of her embroidery which still hangs on the wall of my second cousins house in Oz. I remember I recognising him even though we had met when I was eight and him 12. I kicked a football high into the air and it landed on his dad's greenhouse smashed glass. I ran around mortified and apologised. His dad was out and he swept up the glass and slid in a new new payne ( it was a vent piece so quite small). He was so kind and didn't tell his dad. He must have left an impression. We met when I was 28. We are now married with a child.

When I was 4 and living in South Africa, i was adamant that we would be moving to Scotland. There was no reason to think this as my family owned a business in South Africa. Fast forward to my teenage years and we did actually move to Scotland.
Chatting to a mum in the school playground in our small Scottish town, transpired that her cousin is married to my cousin, which doesn’t sound so odd, but considering my cousin is South African and they still live in the small village I used to, I found it a bit odd!!

I seem to have taken to the number 7.
I'm born on the 7th my husband is born on theb7th month (July) my daughter was born on the 7th in 2017 my other daughter was almost 2 hours shy of being born on the 17th but her birth time was 10.17pm after me being in labour for 7 hours and 47 minutes and our last name has 7 letters... crazy 😊

I went into a shop and purchased a few items I needed, and the total came to £6.65. The shopkeeper laughed and commented it was almost £6.66.

I went into a different shop almost a week later, having not been into any shops since the last, and picked up different items that I needed, not paying any attention to the price really.

I got to the till and it came to £6.66. Totally different categories of items, different shops, but in succession.

I have also never lost a bank card. Apart from the one I got about 4 years ago that had the number on the back of 666.

Unrelated, when I was a kid my mum promised us a hamster each. We hadnt been to the pet shop and didn't know what they had available. But I told her I would be getting a black and white striped hamster. I was certain of it.

She obviously told me that it depended what they had and that a black and white striped hamster was probably unlikely to be there.

Well, he was there at the pet shop as I had somehow known. He was the only black and white one there, and so small that my mum was convinced he would die and she'd have to come back, so she bought a 'spare' too!

Although Stripes was the runt of the litter, he outlived all other the hamsters we had by years, despite him at one point escaping and eating rat poison that my father had put down.