h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't know whether this counts as a valid discussion point for "coincidences" but, anyways...
Has anyone experienced being on the verge of calling someone, with no prior arrangement to do so, and that person rings at exactly that moment? Or, spookier still, when you pick up the phone to do so, the person is on the other end? This has happened to me on frequent occasion.

That happened to me once, but it wasn't that surprising a coincidence since we usually called each other around that time. (Deciding who would come who's house after school.) It was still a bit of a shock for my friend who picked up the phone to call me and found me already on the other end. I heard one ring at my end, but he got none and was completely baffled.

I can tell if my best friend is going to call. I can also guess pretty accurately about what she is thinking about.

Neat...! If you could perfect that it would not 'alf save on the cost of telephone calls

topher

About phone calls...

One day something happened that upset my niece. She couldn't even call her brother on the phone to ask his opinion because she could not use long distance where she was staying. She asked me if I would email her brother to ask him to call her when he had time.

When I tried emailing him my ISP started misbehaving, so I never had a chance to email anything. The next morning my niece shows up bright and early saying "Oh, thanks for emailing my brother, he called last night".

I have logged into IMs thinking I need to message this relative or that friend only to find that they had already buzzed me. After a couple of months of this I had the long distance service disconnected as it was totally useless...at least for us it is.

I was coming home from the park and while in the car I was thinking about calling a friend of mine. I open the door to my house and the phone is ringing. I was that friend.

This friend of mine rarely called me so that in itself was a miracle

My wife had a really strange coincidence regarding a phone call. We were car pooling to Washington, DC regularly with three other people even though we worked in different parts of the city. One day my wife was covering the phones in an office she doesn't usually work in while someone was out to lunch and a call came in for "Paul Damerell". This was not one of the people in this office but my wife asked if the person he wanted was the Paul Damerell who worked for a particular engineering firm. The caller said, "Yes, that is the man." This was one of the people who rides with us in our carpool and my wife, after getting over the shock gave the caller the correct number to reach Paul.

We investigated and found that the phone number my wife was covering was very close to Paul's regular office number so it meant that the caller had misdialed the number but managed completely by accidnet, to get someone on the other end who would recognize her party by name. Certainly gave us something to talk about in the car on the way home that evening.

I tried to ring a mate of mine on his mobile early in the morning and knew he would be in his work van going to work. I rang the number said Hello Pete it's me (gave my name which I'm not giving you lot hah hah), the guy said yes hello. I started to chat to him, how are you what you up to tonight etc, he said Wait a minute I'm goin to pull over, I'm in the van on the way to a job. I mentioned something that he'd said the night previously and at this point we realised that we didn't know each other.
The Pete's did the same job, same age, same interests and one number different on their mobiles.

I have done the pick up the phone thing intending to call someone and they are already on the other end, too.

My sister often says "Oh, the phone is going to ring" and it does within a few seconds - (could be anyone calling, not just her friends).
She less often says "Oh the phone is going to ring" and it doesn't.

The best phone story I heard was about someone who was walking home after leaving his office early. A person in his office urgently needed to phone him as he was the only one who understood the company's new fax machine. They called up his details on a computer and accidently dialled his payroll number instead of his phone number. Simple mistake, BUT it got through to a public call box which the guy just happenend to be walking past at that very moment. He answered it and was amazed to hear his colleague on the phone asking him how to work the fax machine.

My mother and my aunt live in diffarent countries but are very close and e-mail each other a lot. Sometimes though, about once every second month or so, one of them will call the other.
One night my mom decided to give her sis a call, dialed the number only to recieve the engaged tone. Five minutes later my aunt called, and during the ensuring conversation it was realized that the only time either of their phones had been used that evening was five minutes earlier when both of them had tried to call each other. They had called each other at exactly the same time and of course both phones had been engaged!