Sideswipe: June 18: Strange coincidences

Strange coincidences.

"In 1958 when I was 3 years old I fell out of a car — while my mother was driving — that had what were known colloquially as suicide doors: ones that were hinged at the rear," writes Ken Brough. "I split my head open and suffered (minor) brain damage and I'm pretty sure that I had an out-of-body experience. Fast forward to 2016 and I called in to see an elderly guy about something on the other side of Te Awamutu from where I live. He invited me in for a cuppa and we chatted for a while. I told him how I had had a number of lives: cancer, heart attack and that I even fell out of a car when I was a nipper. A few minutes later he asked me if it was an Austin that I'd fallen out of. I FROZE. How do you know? He pointed out the window and said, 'it's out in the back shed.' He had bought it off my father in the early 60s and remembered the story that his dad had told him. Very, very spooky walking out the back to see it. Ha, ha I've outlasted the car!"

A budding entrepreneur

"A friend of mine has a 16-year-old son who is in a relationship with a girl. Being a caring mother she bought him a couple of boxes of condoms. A couple of weeks later he gave her $30 explaining he had sold them at $2 each to his friends and that was half the profit made. He then asked his mother for four more boxes. After some contemplation she continued to supply him on the basis the youths were obviously having sex, but couldn't get the condoms from their own parents, so surely it was better than chancing unprotected sex."

Two years late

A reader writes: "A few days ago my bank statements arrived by mail. Yesterday they arrived again. Strange, I thought — until I noticed that the balances were wrong. Check the date, yes, May — but May 2017. Check the records and in 2017 I had to request a replacement statement for May. It arrived promptly and now so has the original."

Twitter explained

Photo / Supplied

An excellent explanation of a Twitter argument goes: "Twitter is fun because you get to be like, 'Ducks are good' and someone in your mentions will go, 'Um, I'm sorry but my brother is married to a duck scientist and this is a harmful view' and then someone else pops up going, 'Your silence about horses is extremely telling'." (@MikeDrucker, writer on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.)