489: No Coincidence, No Story!
This American Life
We asked listeners to send us their best coincidence stories, and we got more than 1,300 submissions! There were so many good ones that we decided to make a whole show about them. From a chance encounter at a bus station to a romantic dollar bill to a baffling apparition in a college shower stall.
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(00:00:00) Prologue: Hannah Jacoby tells the story of when she and her best friend Lindsey bonded over those toy soldiers with the parachutes, called (really) Poopatroopers — and how the little jumpers perfectly bookended their high-school years. And guest host Sarah Koenig explains the very interesting trends we discovered in our listeners' coincidences. (9 minutes)
(00:09:23) Act One: A surprising number of coincidences involve grandmothers. One grandma has so many coincidences happen to her that it drives her granddaughter, 16-year-old Juliana Bontrager, to try to beat her at her own coincidence game. We also hear from Blake Oliver about a very strange appearance his grandma once made. (9 minutes)
(00:19:31) Act Two: When it comes to love, coincidences tend to loom extra-large. Stephen Lee tells about the time his parents first met his fiance’s parents, and his future mother-in-law dropped a coincidence bomb. And we hear how a dollar bill ended up clinching a marriage, after floating around Chicago for years. (10 minutes)
(00:28:22) Act Three: Ryan Rozar told us about a confounding coincidence that was visited on him in college. We didn’t think it was a coincidence at all, so we set out to prove him wrong. (8 minutes)
(00:37:39) Act Four: More stories of dazzling coincidences: an old boyfriend is conjured in Morocco, a jazz singer seems to rise from the dead, and three boys believe they’ve seen a corpse. Plus stories of errant fathers, lost and found. (13 minutes)
(00:49:57) Act Five: Kerry Weeks tells about the time he lost a pocketknife and turned to the galaxy for help. (7 minutes)
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60 分钟
1k+ 次播放
3周前
