A couple of nights ago while I was considering re-upping my year-long cell phone plan—how I do love those Ryan Reynolds' Christmas cards—I found myself in a sentimental mood. On a whim, I googled my childhood home phone number. It's like that Garth Brooks lyrics, but for me:

Just for laughs, I dialed her old number
But no one knew her name

Google provided only a single link for my search results. The website preview connected the number to my Mom, who passed away in 2015.

I clicked the link. Everything was what I expected except for one GLARING entry: there was a phone number there that could not possibly be hers! I googled the strange number: it is for a couple who are 1-2 years younger than me.

Here's the kicker: this couple lives 0.8 miles away from my college girlfriend's childhood home. Curious! I looked up the address on Google Maps—I once played chess at the nearby park that's a 5-minute stroll away. You might say, "Well, that's a nifty coincidence, perhaps unlikely, but you lived in close proximity to one another, right? It's not mind-bending. Perhaps the site had its wires crossed?"

The thing is, my college girlfriend lived 740 miles away!

Thus my Mom is randomly associated with a phone number that's shared by a couple who's just a 2-minute drive from my old girlfriend's place, closer than what Walmart Neighborhood Market is from me today. This is in a town of 18,000 that took me 11+ hours to reach via interstate. When I flew, I had to board 3 flights to get there. Incidentally, when my Mom moved, she moved 20 hours down I-40 in the opposite direction!

And this is random? That's the story we're going with?

This unnerves me.

I spend a lot of my time trying to make my world make sense. I don't have a problem with some random number being associated with my Mom. But, how is THAT neighborhood connected? In the scheme of things, it does not matter at all—just a tumble over the improbable. When folks say "stranger things have happened," this has GOT to be one of those things!

On a no-way-whatsoever-related note: how does one enter the Powerball? Followup: how ethical would it use those winnings to acquire a tiny island in the South Pacific, declare it as a sovereign state (thereby avoiding taxes), and set up an operation to sell Snoopy knockoffs? It may be improbable, but I'm banking on a Snoopy comeback. That Red Baron bit is gonna be gold.