While reading Pam's post yesterday in Pam's Perspectives, I started thinking about the funny coincidences I've had running into people in places I didn't expect to. Being a real estate agent you count on what we call our sphere of influence to build business, so I usually enjoy it when I meet people I know or people who know people I know but I've had some really strange occurrences.I live in the smallest state, Rhode Island. You know, the state that news people use as a unit of measure for things like "an iceberg the size of Rhode Island has broken off the coast of Alaska and is floating towards Hawaii" or "a forest fire three times the size of Rhode Island is raging in......" Those of us from the littlest state, with the biggest name I might add, get a little tired of that.
Yet many people don't even seem to know WHERE Rhode Island is! In our travels in the US we stopped answering Rhode Island when asked where we're from because we got sick of hearing "oh, isn't that the island off New York?" No, you dope, that's LONG ISLAND!
And then there's the guy you meet somewhere who says "My cousin's ex-husband is from Rhode Island, do you know him, his name is......?" While it's true there are only a million of us living here and I do know a lot of people, I don't know them all!!
But then there was the time in Italy about 5 years ago when Pam, of the aforementioned Pam's Perspectives, my BFF Gisele (I can use that, can't I?) and I were in a restaurant in Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast. A guy with a guitar was strolling around asking people where they were from. He asked a young couple sitting right next to us. The guy didn't answer The States or Rhode Island or New England he just said Woonsocket. What'd he say!? Woonsocket is a small mill city in northern RI and happens to be Gisele's hometown. What are the odds?
And then the lady working in the gift shop in Prescott, Arizona, who was from Oakham, Massachusetts. Oakham is a town of about 300 people and Paul's cousin and his family just happen to live there. Weird!
And the time Gisele and I were on the commuter bus to Providence talking about someone we knew in this family of 14 kids. The guy opposite us looked out from behind his newspaper and said "I heard my name, are you talking about my family?" (Ooops! What did we just say about that family??) Oh well, that's not such a small world story, after all there are 14 kids in the family, that's half a town in Rhode Island!
It's a Small, Small World.......
Image from Google Image
6 comments:
I love these RI "close encounters". So random and so fun.
I so enjoy Small World moments while traveling, and I'm always the DORK that wants to point out our hometowniness.
I get excited when I see someone wearing a T-shirt or sweatshirt with one of my alma-maters represented.
It IS fun!
It's like having a secret that no one else knows about...it slowly becomes an "us against them" kinda thing.
:-) I had a similar small world experience. My sister and I were travelling from Copenhagen to Amsterdam on a night train. A man asked if he could join us in the car, so we moved over to share one side, and allowed him to stretch out on the seats opposite us. All of us slept for most of the trip, but as we were pulling in to Amsterdam, we started talking. Turns out, he lived about 10 minutes from our house!
Pam, Random is right, always happens when you lease expect it, too
Savant, YOU could never be a dork!
Tammy, do you go up to them and say HEY? It is a little like hearing English spoken in a foreign country by an American!
Alex, or what I call 'old home week'
Miss Lady Grey, that's even better than my Sorrento experience. Again, what are the odds??
Post a Comment