Coincidence?

A woman came into the shop today and I helped her choose materials & pattern for a cardigan. She mentioned several times that she needed the project to work on during a plane flight. Checking out, she again mentioned the long plane flight, so I asked how long the flight was. She said, 36 hours. I was thinking, where the hell on earth is 36 hours away, and why do you want to go there, but what I said was, "My goodness, that IS a long flight; where are you going?" and she said, India.

Okay, that's kind of odd in itself, because I don’t get that many knitting customers readying for a flight to India. But then it got even weirder.

There was only one other customer in the store, trying on sweaters. And when the first customer said “India”, this lady’s head whips around, and she said, “Really? Where in India?” So customer #1 asks, Why, have you been there? and customer #2 says, Yes, I lived there for 2 years! A happy conversation then follows between the two, one anxious for information and the other happy to share her experiences. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, what are the chances? It’s December, a little shop in a little town in a rural state. and probably the only two people in 3 counties that have any ties to India at all not only come into the store at the same time, but discover their connection. It’s just weird.

Yet, this happens a LOT at Unique One. One day a few years ago, in the summer, a group of tourists obviously traveling together came into the shop, speaking Russian. The tour leader was talking a mile a minute, and took the group to the back of the store where they kept shopping. Meanwhile a midwestern family, parents and young adult daughter from Kansas or Nebraska or someplace (far from Maine) came in and began looking at pottery in the front of the store. Pretty soon the daughter shrieks and runs full tilt to the back of the store and attacked the leader of the Russian tour group. They both were shrieking and crying. With some concern I ran to find out what was going on.... turns out the young American girl was an exchange student in the Ukraine for a while and the leader of the Russian tour group was the mother of the family she lived with there! When they separated, they both figured they’d never see each other again. What are the chances, they’d both turn up AT THE SAME TIME in a little shop in a little town in a state very far from home for both of them?

It’s weird.

Coincidence? Nah, it’s too weird for that. Must be fate.