The Law of Averages

I can’t recall how well I did in statistics class, most likely because of one of the few following reasons: I a) didn’t take statistics class in college, b) spent way too much time between the sheets with girls and not near enough between the pages of schoolbooks, or c) didn’t actually go to college. I can’t even recall which of the answers would be closest to correct, so I shall not bother. And there’s your opening paragraph.

But let’s just say that the odds of some things happening are almost statistically impossible. Like that time when my dad and I were at the driving range hitting golf balls, and we both hit at the same time, and our golf balls hit each other in mid-air about fifty yards out. Un-effing-believable. Seriously, we couldn’t do that again in seven hundred years. But it did happen. I wonder if that has ever even happened before to anyone out there at driving ranges all over the world. Surely it has…

But Saturday, Siege and I loaded up the pickup full of stuff to take to the storage shed and headed out. Now get this. The damn public storage place is probably like ten acres of overhead door garages. You know the places. Rows and rows and rows of storage doors that all look alike. Well we pull up to Siege’s and there’s a car right outside the door to the right of his. The back bumper was almost in our way. We were loading Swindle’s hardtop into storage for the summer.

Well they weren’t really in our way. Just almost. And the funny thing is that the women who owned the car were in one of the inner halls unloading some of their shit. So the door that lets you into the interior unit is to the left of Siege’s door like six feet. Well, there’s one more overhead door between the swinging door and his overhead. And his is a full-size one. The one directly left of his is like a miniature one. Anyway, now you know the layout. So we start unloading the Jeep hardtop and another pickup pulls up. WTF?

It was seriously getting crowded. Like I said, ten acres of these storage rooms, it’s Saturday around noon, and there are no cars to be seen anywhere on the property. Except for right outside Siege’s storage room. Seriously, what the hell is going on here? So the new guy pulls up, hops out and says, “Hey guys, I need to get into that door right there.” Yeah. The one right to the left of Siege’s. Right to the right of the interior door that was open. Good lord. So all three people who visited that place on Saturday at noon were there in three adjacent storage units.

And I’m not kidding – we were the only three trucks on the property! What in the fetid maggot-infested whale snot is going on here? So what this tells me is that the front office uses some really sophisticated demographics graphs when renting these places. They put people next to each other who will be likely to visit on the same day at the same time so that they can – – what… Wait, why? So they can promote, condone and kindle new friendships? Enemyships? The dude was all right, but the two big bulldykes weren’t really the types I’d hang with.

Jackasses don't fly balloonsSo what are the odds of that shit happening? That reminds me of the time a guy I know and one of his buddies were sitting at a bar somewhere, and this dude started talking to a chick next to him. He starts making up some shit to impress her, saying he’s got his balloon license. Yeah. Seriously. His hot air ballooning license, that would be. Well, turns out the woman to whom he’s talking is a professional balloonist. She literally owned and flew several hot air balloons. He had picked the wrong tree to bark up.

So she backs him into a corner pretty quickly, asking him shit he can’t answer, and he finally has to admit that no, he doesn’t quite have his license, he’s almost done with school, to – no, actually he hasn’t quite started school yet, to – no, actually, he was thinking about looking into maybe going and checking out whether or not hot air balloon school was something he might want to think about looking into pursuing.

What the hell are the odds that someone would choose to talk about hot air ballooning… and the person to whom you’re bragging (and bullshitting) ends up being a pro. Seriously? I could have lived my entire life and never even met someone who’s been on a hot air balloon, much less someone who is qualified to operate them. Yeah, hot air ballooning would seem like a pretty safe bet though, if you wanted to make up some bullshit and not get called out on it.

So what laws of averages have you seen exercised in your life? Or broken? I mean, these are some instances that just can’t ever happen. And they did. So have you ever had something impossible like that happen to you?

This Post Has 11 Comments

  1. Phil Mabe

    I ran into the same strange woman at five or six different events over a period of about a year. We discovered that there was no real connection that brought us both there, but there we were. Now we’re married. :D

    I know, not as amazing as your golfball story, but pretty interesting when you look at the odds.

  2. Well, you know my husband and I have the same birthdate. That’s pretty odd.

    1. Space

      Have you heard of the birthday paradox? It states that the probability of two people in a room having the same birth date reaches 100% when there are 366 people in the room. Duh. But the weird part is that it’s at 99% probability at 57 people, and 50% probability at 23 people. That’s some crazy math. So if there are 23 people in the room, most likely a pair of them have the same birth date. :tinfoil:

      So, uh, sorry, Hay. But that’s not that odd.

  3. Siege

    There was this one time recently at my storage unit, where the place was empty except for right at my …. wait a sec..

  4. Catina

    I have tons of these “coincidences” but for what ever reason, today I am drawing a blank.

  5. Professor Murda

    My sister married the boy who laid in the nursery right next to her when they were born. They knew eachother all through kindergarten and middle school then she cheerlead while he played football, then they had their first baby when they graduated college together. Got married shortly thereafter, live happily together to this day. My sister now practices medicine with him at a family clinic. The dumb whore.

  6. Jeremy

    An old friend of mine swears its a coincidence that his buddy happened to be standing there naked when he slipped while he was yawning an accidentally landed with his mouth on his penis. You know that whole story.
    :sissies:

  7. Space

    Professor Murda educated us with this gem:
    My sister now practices medicine with him at a family clinic. The dumb whore.

    :|

  8. SahSah

    those are all really amazing – I got nuthin – does the law of averages indicate that at some point in time SOMETHING coincidental and interesting WILL happen to me? Someday???

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