(Submitted by friend of the blog, Jerry Buchanan)

Many years ago, I started a new job in a small company in Hollywood with only eight employees. One of the other employees had the same last name (not a particularly common one) as mine.

Since we had this bond, we spent several lunches together. We eventually learned that we were both from Indianapolis, Indiana!

Interestingly, we had both had our family trees researched, and there were no common ancestors between us.

[EDITOR: Before you say anything, I know this is a rather simple story compared to most. And some might not even find it that big of a coincidence. I personally have known several Buchanans (including Jerry), which made me not even initially accept that it’s an uncommon last name.

But the reason we chose to share this story anyway is because it highlights a thought process that a lot of people go through. What’s mundane or simple to you might be startling to me. What I shrug off as irrelevant or barely a blip on the radar is startling and telling to someone else. And it’s often these little events that mean the most to people. And for someone who’s already on the edge of superstitious, these events add up.

Do you have any friends who claim these things ALWAYS happen to them? That they’re constantly surrounded by strange events, coincidences, numbers that follow them, etc.? Odds are you know or have met SOMEONE with this mind set, and to them a little event like this isn’t something to be shrugged off. They plug it into the greater tapestry of what they believe to be a pattern, and signs, and it informs their life views.

So recognizing and tracking even these small events and realizing what they can mean to people is an important part of understanding the overall phenomena. If it’s important to someone, it should be important to us, too, even if it’s not for the same reasons. – Jarrett]