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?

I went into hospital on Monday the 12th to be induced, my mum was born on Thursday the 15th of Jan, I was born Thurs 15th of August, my mum said Thursday is the 15th I bet the baby comes then, midwives said dont worry she'll be here before then! I was given medication to induce labour everyday, nothing seemed to be working, 20 past 1 on Thursday morning my daughter arrived

Not particularly exciting but I've been told by a few different people the grandparents of Evelyn Glennie the percussionist used to live in the house I now own.

Looking at where she was born that does tie in.

Tinkling just spotted your post. Depends on the age of your DC. They may have lost baby teeth prematurely, there are lots of reasons why this happens. Early on there is nothing you can do even if the teeth are missing, treatment would not be carried out until much further along. The lack of enamel is a little more concerning but it may be that because the permanent teeth have different type of enamel to baby teeth they look much darker. The enamel is there but you may be mistaking it for dentine. I would think your dentist would have referred to a paediatric specialist if there was a problem with enamel.
Ask your dentist to explain what is happening, ask lots of questions.

@blissfulllife

5 years ago my then 7 year old daughter kept telling us she was having a cat for her birthday. And we kept telling her she wasn't and that we'd take her to choose a toy cat on her birthday. Everyday she would still insist she was having a real cat. She told everyone lol.

Day of her birthday comes and she opens her gifts then gets ready to head out to the toy shop. Opens the front door to leave and in walked a little black and white cat!!!!!! "Yay he's here!" I was speechless

We asked around, took him the vets to check if he was chipped, put posters online etc. He was never claimed and has been here ever since.

LOVE this one! Why does this never happen to me ☹️ one of my friends had a young cat turn up at her back door - totally unfazed by her 4 dogs and moved in!

@babbaloushka

I grew up in a tiny little rural village in Scotland, and went to University in a small English city. I made very good friends with a girl there, who told me about her boyfriend, X, but only ever said his first name. Long story short, he comes to visit and she's keen to introduce us- turns out he was my ex-boyfriend from my home village that I'd had at 16! His mum was my dentist, which I think was one of the reasons I had broken up with him . They're still together now.

It's not insanely far fetched but a huge coincidence, very much a surreal small world experience.

My first boyfriend married the girl he left me for - 10yrs later I was living 300 miles away and my housemates sister and husband came to visit .... yes it was them

Both my sister, cousin and numerous work colleagues believe my story but think I am exaggerating elements of it but I am not!!!
A few weeks ago I was watching TV at the back of my house so a thick hedge and three walls separated me from the street. Partner and younger son in garage and older son fast asleep. The most piercing scream comes from the street and a woman is clearly hysterical.
Partner runs through house followed by DS2 and DS1 is woken and runs down stairs. I am begging them not to go outside. We are all convinced that a woman is being attacked by a knife wielding maniac.
The scene that greets us is the woman across the road if hysterical, the kind of hysteria you get when someone is dead. The old people across the road are saying sorry they thought she would have known and trying to comfort her.
All this utter hysteria because she had just been told that Beatrice’s stepson is Wolfe and Eugenie’s son is August .... the same names as her toddler and new born baby!!!

This is very very outing, but soddit!

The 'lucky birdpoo' post reminded me that my relative had things happen the other way round.

As a young child he managed to spectacularly break 4 mirrors, apparently 28 years bad luck!

As he got to mid 20s I remember joking that his years of bad luck were nearly over... when he did something rather stupid and got himself locked away for a life term, minimum 28 years.

A life sentence is neither the result of bad luck nor doing something 'rather stupid'

A life sentence is neither the result of bad luck or doing something stupid.

Tell that to Guildford four

Here goes

My grandfather had 22 siblings

My first husband was the victim of a reasonably high profile miscarriage of justice in the 70's

My SIL was murdered by terrorists whilst on holiday in Egypt

there are so many more that I sound like a fantasist!

@Awwlookatmybabyspider

A life sentence is neither the result of bad luck or doing something stupid.

Tell that to Guildford four

Or the Birmingham Six!!! Jeeeeeez

@Angrymum22 thank you for your reply, I appreciate it. Teeth were definitely not lost too early, DC was 6 and they came out in the ‘right’ order.

Unfortunately DC was missing enamel on back baby teeth and it’s been confirmed by the dentist there’s a problem with her adult teeth too :-( we’ve seen two dentists and the only thing I’ve been told is to watch their diet and make sure brushing is done twice a day. When covid is over I’ll push more. Thanks again x

@Kiehl

Me and my then fiancé went on a engagement shopping trip. He wanted to get an idea of the style of ring I would like. However my then fiancé wanted the ring to be a surprise so I left the choosing and when he would buy it up to him. My fiancé is a real thinker and unbeknownst to me took ages to chose the ring. Fast forward months later and my fiancé proposes. I love my ring. A few months after having my ring I decide to look at the box and diamond certificate that came with his purchase. As I look through all the details it states the day and year my ring was created....26th September 2018 It was the same day and year of our first ever date

Ahhh, I love this.

@MapGirlExtraordinaire

Aaargh lots of typos including my current age. And I missed out my replacement poo at 29 when 28 got nicked by someone else.

I'm sure you still get the gist. I have a higher power guardian angel looking out for me who manifests every 7 years as a shitting bird.

I went to visit a friend who I had known for a couple of years. This was in my late 20s. Looking through her photo album I saw a photograph of a group of people and I was in the photo. She knew the other people in the photo but obviously did not know me as I was abour 4 years old...

My son learnt a song about a worm-something along the lines ‘where’s a worm at the bottom of my garden and his name is wiggly woo’
One day (in winter) he kept telling me there was a worm at the bottom of our garden and he needed to go outside and move it so it didn’t get eaten
This went on for about 6 months-him nagging and me saying it was too cold outside to go and play
He would get very cross as he didn’t want to go and play-just wanted to move this damn worm-and me refusing as it was freezing out there etc
Anyway about 5/6 months after he first brought it up I opened the back door and said I’d go with him just to prove there was no worm
We got to the garden gate and there was a massive worm laid on the step of the gate
He looked at me
‘Told you mum’ picked up old wriggly woo and moved him so he wouldn’t get eaten
He never mentioned wiggly woo again

It was 1978 Hotel Luna (Loony) in Benidorm I ( drunkenly ) said to a random Brit bloke at the bar " you look a bit like Paul Newman. " . 2 years later in a bar in Tenerife who should be sitting at the bar but my old mate Paul ! His mates nearly spat their beer out.

@LastRoloIsMine

I know a woman who went to Cyprus to get married and was there for a week. She contracted encephalitis and was in a coma for 3 months. She woke up with some of her memories so for example knew who her adult children were but couldnt remember about the last 5 years. She had changed personality wise.

She was a 50 year old white women who came out of a coma a racist. She never was before.
The unbelievable bit is the reason she was in Cyprus was her wedding to a black man she had dated for 5 years! It was awful. She just wouldn't accept him and was disgustingly racistly abusive towards him when he cam to visit.

@LastRoloIsMine what happened ? Did she get better or did she remain like this? How upsetting for her partner

Being a racist isn't a personality trait, is it? Isn't it more likely she was always a racist, and the brain injury disinhibited her enough to voice her views? Getting married to a man of colour may have been her pre-injury way of showing the world she can't be racist because of her husband. Like the kind of people who claim not be racist because their best mate is from Zimbabwe.

@19thNamechange

I thought you were going to say you knew it was the same person because your DH also wet himself every day!. The dh was the one who wet himself ..

My exOH had an unusual surname: he was the only one in the phone-book for our town when we bought our first flat.

We sold the flat when we had our first baby (it was top-floor up 78 stairs!) and thought no more about it until someone rang us up a few years later to ask about some post for us that had arrived there.

He had bought the flat from the people we sold it to, and had the same surname as my ex; he had found us through the new phone book, which now had two people of our name in that town. He was no relation to us at all.

My friend who I have known for 30+ years and who is from a different city to me was talking about her step brother one day. She said something that sounded familiar so i asked her what his surname was. Turns out her dad had been married to my mum's cousin's ex- wife for years and her step- brother is a cousin of mine. My mum had exchanged Christmas cards with my friend's dad and stepmum for years without any of us knowing the connection.

@Abfabfanjo

Being a racist isn't a personality trait, is it? Isn't it more likely she was always a racist, and the brain injury disinhibited her enough to voice her views? Getting married to a man of colour may have been her pre-injury way of showing the world she can't be racist because of her husband. Like the kind of people who claim not be racist because their best mate is from Zimbabwe.

Wow. That's a bit of a reach.

About 6 years ago I was on holiday in Turkey - on first day met a couple with a small child similar age to my son and we chatted by the pool bar for about an hour - they were waiting for their hotel shuttle to collect them for airport

4 years later coming out from breakfast at a completely different ver large hotel dropped my sunglasses and a guy at the table nearest to exit point vied them up and gave them back - was sane man and his family from BBC 6 years earlier and we all really remembered each other

Completely different hotel in 2019 overseas - was enjoying a cocktail while waiting for DH to join me when a lady came up to me at bar and asked what I had ordered and what it was like - she turned around to tell her friend sitting on the balcony area and as I looked over I realised her friend sitting (& her husband) outside was my next door but one neighbour from about 10 years earlier

@Abfabfanjo

Being a racist isn't a personality trait, is it? Isn't it more likely she was always a racist, and the brain injury disinhibited her enough to voice her views? Getting married to a man of colour may have been her pre-injury way of showing the world she can't be racist because of her husband. Like the kind of people who claim not be racist because their best mate is from Zimbabwe.

Maybe it could be. If there is a part of the brain that fears the unknown or the different (which is what racism is at root - fear) and that part got disinhibited, she could suddenly become racist when she genuinely wasn't before. She'd have encountered enough racists to know how they behave and that behaviour would be stored in her memory somewhere.

I've heard other inexplicable things happen after brain damage - such as suddenly being able to play piano having had no musical talent before, or being suddenly good at maths.