Small changes can have incredibly large and unintended consequences, whether for good or for ill. And no matter how smart you (think you) are, there’s absolutely no way that you can predict all of the possible outcomes of your actions.

Today, we’re featuring some of the most dramatic real-life examples of the butterfly effect affecting people’s lives, as shared by folks online. It’s a riveting read, and it’s a reminder that there are so many things that we can’t control in life. Scroll down to see how even the smallest decisions can have a major impact on your future.

#1

I left the house 5 minutes late in 2005 when I was supposed to be catching a greyhound bus to Arizona from North Carolina. As a result, I ended up in a ditch because I was run off the road by a car driving the opposite direction in my lane. Instead of going back to Arizona, I stayed to pay off the damages to my step fathers vehicle. At the job I got to pay off those damages, I met my fiancee. If I had left the house even 30 seconds before or after the time I did, I would have missed the encounter that put me in the ditch and I would not be here with her today, and that is crazy to think about. Those 5 minutes changed everything about my life.

And the more I think about that, the more I realize that as we get older, the events we experience are more and more improbable, requiring so many of these little butterfly effects to occur in just the right way. Things I will do tomorrow will have another day of random chance involved that today’s events won’t. I guess in a way that means every day is life changing. We just don’t know how much because all these little ripples seem so insignificant when they occur.

© Photo: form_an_opinion

#2

After the Boston Tea Party of 1773, large numbers of Americans switched to drinking coffee during the American Revolution because drinking tea had become unpatriotic.

© Photo: anon

#3

Okay maybe not a *small* action, but an instance of the butterfly effect nonetheless.

August 1945, at the tail end of World War 2, Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan are nuked. This of course causes a deep economic depression in Japan (to match the deep craters in the ground where cities once stood).

For years, Japan tries to get back on it’s feet, but the economy is so bad that not only have living conditions in general deteriorated, but nobody has any drive to *try* improving things because there is virtually no such thing as entertainment in post-WW2 Japan, and what little there is, is very expensive and cannot be afforded by most of the population, who can barely even afford rice to feed themselves. Japan is in a deep state of depression, and not only a financial one, but an emotional one.

Enter Osamu Tezuka. In 1952, Tezuka decides to create a comic to entertain the Japanese public, in order to make them happy enough to work to get Japan back on track. He creates Tetsuwan Atom, known as Astro Boy in the west, and prints it on the cheapest, lowest quality paper with the cheapest, lowest quality ink, in order to sell it for dirt cheap, so that the poor Japanese public can afford it.

It becomes a massive success. It gets Japan out of it’s emotional depression (and partially gets it out of it’s economic one) and spawns dozens of imitators over the next few years, who largely try and imitate Tezuka’s art style in order to cash in on the popularity of Tetsuwan Atom.

This forms the basis of the Japanese *manga* (comic) industry, and later spawns animated adaptations of many of these manga, known as *anime*. The industry continued to grow, and continued to encourage Japanese people to work hard so they could buy these ever-popular comics, which caused a massive economic boom over the next few decades.

And today, Japan is the go-to place for technology, video games and of course, their wacky anime and manga.

**tl;dr: Hitler is directly responsible for the creation of Anime.**

© Photo: KindaConfusedIGuess

The Decision Lab explains that the idea of the butterfly effect is rooted in chaos theory. At its core, it posits that tiny changes in systems can create large and non-linear consequences elsewhere, over time.

You could, for example, completely change your career when you accidentally go to a coffee shop and meet someone who works at your dream company, landing you a job interview. Your life would look very different if you had, for instance, gone to the coffee shop next door or decided to brew a cup of coffee at home. Your life could be even better. It could be worse. But, at the end of the day, you don’t quite know what would have happened.

The metaphor that you’ve likely heard before, about how the flap of a butterfly’s wing can cause a tornado in another corner of the world weeks later, was used by mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz.

#4

The Butterfly Effect with media acceleration: An unknown MD in the UK does a very unscientific study of the relationship of innoculations to the instance of autism. Because he’s not scientist his bumbling leads him to conclude that there is not only a relationship but a causal relationship and vaccinations are responsible for the reported rise in autism. A media b***o who gets press access because of her big hard implants has a child she mistakenly thinks is autistic and broadcasts the bumblef**k doc’s “study” as fact. As Mark Twain said, “A lies can go around the world two and a half times before the truth can get it’s pants on.” and before you know it hundreds of thousands of parents all over the world were bringing back epidemics of diseases like measles which had been eradicated. When the bumbling doc got his license yanked for malpractice the media didn’t even notice.

© Photo: truthseeker444

#5

In 1968, the Buffalo Bills lost a game by missing an easy touchdown. That year they went 1-12-1, which was the worst record of any team that year. That meant they got the first pick in 1969 draft, and used it on USC runningback O.J. Simpson. O.J. lives in Buffalo for the coming years, meets his wife Nicole Brown, and later probably murders her. For his trial, he hires Rob Kardashian as his defense. They win the case in controversial fashion, making Rob and his family somewhat famous. Then 12 years later, Kim releases the tape and she becomes famous.

tl;dr: If the 1968 Buffalo Bills hadn’t missed a touchdown, then the Kardashians might not have become famous.

© Photo: qqqqq_38

#6

Traffic jams are often caused by a short braking of the frontmost car.

© Photo: AskMeAnythingIAnswer

However, licensed clinical social worker and the cofounder of Charlie Health, Caroline Fenkel, DSW, LCSW, warns that focusing too much on the butterfly effect can potentially lead to anxiety, overthinking, and fear.

“When the butterfly effect is misunderstood as a guarantee that small choices always have monumental consequences, it can lead to hyper-responsibility or magical thinking, believing that forgetting your umbrella could somehow lead to missing out on your life’s purpose,” Fenkel told Verywell Mind.

Meanwhile, relationship therapist Cheryl Groskopt, LMFT, LPCC, adds that magical thinking adds a lot of pressure on someone. They think that every small decision is vital, so they become hypervigilant and can even shut down because they’re scared of doing something wrong.

This sense of hyper-responsibility can lead to lots of regret and self-blame, Fenkel explains.

#7

Here’s one that you might not know about. There are many hundreds of thousands of different proteins in the human body (order of magnitude estimate, no one has an exact count). One of these is known as APP. It’s 751 amino acids long.

One specific amino acid (#693), if it gets mutated from glutamate to glutamine (which is basically changing an OH to an NH2), will end you. Specifically, this is known as the Dutch mutation, which leads to huge amounts of amyloid protein being deposited throughout the brain, extremely early-onset Alzheimers, and death by cerebral hemorrhage. Change one atom (oxygen to nitrogen) out on the side of one amino acid, out of 751, on one protein, out of nearly a million, and that’s what takes place.

© Photo: dblowe

#8

I had plans with my girlfriend for Saturday night a couple months back. I received a last minute call from my close buddy, inviting me to drive an hour and a half north of where I live to a party. I call my girlfriend, explain the situation, she said “Go ahead and have fun, I’m just filling out online job applications anyway, I’ll just finish doing this. We can just see each other tomorrow on Sunday.” I was so happy and relieved. I promised her a great night and had a couple gifts to give her as well. Things were going so good with this girl. As the night progressed (btw the party was F*****G AMAZING) I text her and ask her how things are going. She said that her friend was trying to drag her out, I encouraged her to go out, so she did.

I text her a couple hours later, no response. I call her, no answer. The next day, I call her a couple times, no answer. I text her, no response. She completely flaked on our date with no explanation. I find out a couple days later that she is in a relationship with a guy she had met that night when her friend dragged her out – and I encouraged her. They are now engaged.

TL;DR – I encouraged my girlfriend to go out with her BFF when she didn’t really feel like going out because I was out and having a good time, she meets her current fiance and doesn’t even bother to call me or text me back to let me know.

© Photo: Wu-TangJedi

#9

“A ship of Cuban immigrants sinking leads to America invading Iraq.

Such examples are common in history, but this is so vivid and unpredictable, that I have to mention it.

November 21st, 1999, a boat carrying a dozen Cuban immigrants trying to get to Miami sank. Two of the passengers were a young boy named Elian Gonzalez and his mother, Elizabeth. Elian survived the sinking, but his mother did not. If he had drowned, or if she had survived, most of us would never have heard of this story. But he survived and was rescued by fishermen and brought to Miami.

At this point, the story becomes an international incident. Elian was taken in by relatives in Miami, but his father still lived in Cuba, and wanted him back. What would usually be a simple custody issue (which the father would almost certainly win), was complicated by 50 years of Cuban-American relations. The large Cuban-American population in Miami has extremely negative feelings toward the Castro government in Cuba. To them (including Elian’s relatives), sending the child back to Cuba was unthinkable. But the law pretty clearly gives parental rights to the father.

The US Government ordered that Elian be returned to his father. Elian’s American relatives refused. The situation, while technically peaceful, was incredibly volatile, and could turn violent at a moment’s notice. The Border Patrol sent in an armed team to storm the house and taken Elian back by force. No one was hurt, but armed government agents storming a home to seize a child played very badly in the media.

This incident gave then-President Clinton a serious political black eye, particularly among Cuban-Americans, which group is largely concentrated in Florida. It just so happened that was an election year, and Clinton’s vice-President, Al Gore, was running to replace him. Clinton’s political troubles ended up being passed on to his would-be successor.

The 2000 election was one of the closest in US history. The US electoral system is set up so that whoever wins a state gets all the votes for that state. Florida is a big state, and it’s votes ended up deciding the election. Al Gore ended up losing the state by an incredibly thin margin (in an election that remains highly controversial), which means that George W. Bush became the 43rd President of the United States. It’s highly likely that, had the Elian Gonzalez incident never happened, Al Gore would have been President.

The consequences of a presidential election are numerous, but there are some very clear ones in this case. Less than a year into Bush’s first term, the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists. Both Republicans and Democrats agree that Gore would have responded different to the attacks (naturally, Republicans insist he would done much worse, Democrats insist he would have done much better). Most obviously, while Gore might have still attacked Afghanistan, it’s a near certainty he wouldn’t have invaded Iraq.

So, had Elian’s boat not sank, or had his mother survived, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, 4,500 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis would still be alive, several hundred billions of dollars would not have been spent, and ISIS would likely not exist. At the same time, President Obama was elected primarily in response to the unpopularity of the Bush Administration, so there’s no way of knowing who would be in the Oval Office now.

A single human death is more than a flap of a butterfly’s wings, but the consequences of it are enormous.”

© Photo: CommonCentral

However, the positive side of the butterfly effect is that it reinforces that our actions matter, even though we can’t control many (or most) things. This motivates you to live more mindfully and intentionally

“The butterfly effect reminds us that even our smallest actions have the potential to create change. It acknowledges that while we can’t predict every ripple, we can act with kindness, awareness, and purpose, trusting that those small acts matter—even if we never fully see how,” Fenkel says.

On top of that, if you frame the butterfly effect correctly, you start to accept that many events are outside of your control. And so, you become more flexible and resilient when things don’t go your way.

#10

Supposedly Henry Tandy, a British soldier in WW1 spared the life of a young wounded enemy soldier. Apparently he took aim but decided he couldn’t shoot a wounded man. This wounded soldier was Adolf Hitler. Historians have challenged the validity of this story, but if it is actually true then is probably the biggest flap of a butterfly’s wings in history.

© Photo: t3hp0d

#11

We eat with forks because Confucius didn’t like knives at the table.

In Confucian thought, it’s unsightly and inappropriate to have anything remotely violent at the table. Cutting the food is too violent and having knives at the table is like having weapons. This all invites disharmony and Confucius doesn’t mess with that. China really really likes to do what Confucius thought. As a result, Chinese cuisine evolves in such a way that all the cutting happens in the kitchen, away from the table. Noodles become a thing, and chopsticks work really well with this bite-size cuisine.

Now be Italy. You’ve just gotten this crazy noodle thing and so you’re eating them with chopsticks because that’s how the inventors did it. But then you think, what if I used metal sticks instead? They last longer and you love it. You love it so much that you start using three sticks at a time because it’s even easier to eat noodles that way. Then, you think, what if you put all the sticks on the end of another stick? You do and it’s so much easier to hold you can’t even. So Italy, you become this nation of weirdos with a brand new utensil.

But you’re not just any Italian now, you’re Catherine di Medici. Your family is loaded. Like owning cities loaded. Like bribing the Vatican loaded. You know who isn’t loaded right now? France. So instead of just being a rich lady with a rich guy husband, your dad makes you a marriage alliance with a nation-sized dowry and now you are queen of France. France is a big deal. French court is a big deal. You are now the biggest deal in Europe when it comes to social matters. You like forks. You make everyone in your court learn to eat with them. Remember how you’re a big deal? Yeah, so now everyone in Europe likes forks.

Germany likes the forks, but not as much as everyone else. They’re kind of clunky. And huge! So some Germans come up with a better fork design. With more tines! And it’s super compact, and everybody loves it! All the Europeans make their forks this way, now and it spreads to their colossal number of colonies.

All because Confucius didn’t like knives at the dinner table.

© Photo: zap283

#12

There’s a great book on this type of thing called “Black Swan”. It’s essentially a highly unpredictable result or occurrence that wildly deviates from the expected. A pretty popular example of this is Roe vs Wade which essentially decriminalized abortion in America. This occurred in 1973. Later on in the late 80s and 90s It was expected that crime rates in the early 90s would continue to rise far beyond what the penal system was prepared to handle. However, there was a stark decrease in crime. One possibility is that those individuals who would have had kids, who statistically speaking, were likely to contribute to the growing crime rate never did because they were allowed to have abortions.

© Photo: Sarahsmydog

Which of these stories captivated you the most? What are some examples of the butterfly effect in your own lives, dear Pandas? What were the consequences? Does the butterfly effect empower you or demotivate you?

We’d like to hear from you, so if you have a moment, share your thoughts in the comments down below. You never know how doing that might change the course of your life!

#13

During World War I, many U.S. farmers planted the same crops in succession to satisfy high demands as a result of the war.

This led to the soil becoming arid and overfarmed.

This caused many farmers to default on the loans they used to buy expensive farming equipment.

This contributed to the foreclosure of hundreds of banks at the end of the Roaring Twenties.

This caused the Great Depression.

This worsened the economic downturn that Germany was experiencing at the time.

This made Hitler’s rise to power and appointment as Chancellor easier.

This caused WWII.

© Photo: stormbreath

#14

The lookouts on board the Titanic didn’t have binoculars because another sailor had taken the keys to the locker they were in when he left. Some theories suggest that with them they would have been able to spot the iceburg sooner and prevent or lessen the crash, saving hundreds of lives.

© Photo: pigeonchase

#15

Back in the 90’s, some hurricane in the Virgin Islands destroyed the only Olympic-sized pool in the area, which made Tim Duncan switch from competitive swimming to basketball, as he was afraid of swimming in the ocean because of the sharks.

He was drafted by the San Antonio Spurs in 1997 and since then, they have always made the playoffs and have won a bunch of championships.

TL;DR The Spurs became NBA champions thanks to a hurricane.

© Photo: anon

#16

Not exactly the only reason, but the first french invasion to mexico was dubbed “the pastry war” because some bakery got damaged/robbed and the owner was french, so he send a complain to his fellow frenchmen, and next thing mexico knew is that the french are coming.

© Photo: CptAngelo

#17

Jeri Ryan actress on Star Trek voyager married Jack Ryan a successful Wall Street executive. He makes a lot of money and they move back to Chicago. He invests in the community and teaches at a local school. He and Jeri divorce in 1999

He is loved by the community and is a shoe in for Illinois 2004 senate seat.

Chicago Tribune sues and gets access to his divorce litigation from Jeri Ryan and she accused him of wanting her to go to strip clubs Yadda yadda yadda. Jack Ryan drops out. The race is now open. A failed, stay at home lawyer named Barack Obama runs for the seat. He makes some great speeches and he is president 4 years later.

So some b******t in a typical divorce is exposed and leads to Obama being president.

© Photo: jdubs333

#18

As a young man, Adolph Hitler failed out of art school.

On thing led to another and the USA dropped 2 Atomic bombs on the sovereign nation of Japan.

-Brian Reagan.

© Photo: simmelianben

#19

A close friend smoked two packs a day. Every day, he’d walk to the 7-11, buy a couple packs, and walk home. He wouldn’t buy cartons for some reason. Liked to change his brand occasionally I guess.

Anyway, his apartment was right across the street from the 7-11, and he would always take the same stoplight, etc. Smoke a cigarette on the way over, hang out outside the 7-11 to finish it, throw it in the garbage, then walk in, buy two packs, and smoke one on the way home. The guys at the 7-11 knew him by name, loved the guy. He was always friendly, and they knew his schedule. Home from work around 7, come over, grab a couple packs. Sometimes grab a six pack of beer.

So eventually he decides to quit smoking. Has a tough time of it. Tells the guys at the 7-11 he wants to stop smoking and they tell him good luck and encourage him. They encourage him so much they refuse to sell cigarettes to him when he has a moment of weakness.

He freaks out, heads back across the street in anger without waiting for the light, gets clipped by a motorcycle speeding through the intersection.

Motorcycle crashes, rider is tossed. Ambulances come – both head to same hospital.

Turns out motorcycle is ridden by a guy who runs his own construction business. Feels pretty bad about it. Talks to my friend about his business – my friend hangs drywall, but doesn’t like his boss. Eventually rider hires friend at a higher salary. Friend has good job for a bit.

Two years later friend is doing very well, promoted numerous times, now has a team of guys working for him. Gets a phone call – boss was in a motorcycle accident, in hospital. Friend rushes there directly. Boss ends up being paralyzed, has some brain damage from a concussion that slurs/slows his speech.

Within a few weeks Boss has friend running the business for him. Friend is doing great. Business is doing great. Boss decides to sell the business to my friend. He decides to take it over and buy it. Friend now owns construction business and has grown it a lot. A few years later my friend gets an offer to sell the company to a larger company. Takes the money.

My friend is 42 years old and retired, worth over $10M now. All because he quit smoking. Well, and because he worked his a*s off when the opportunity arose. But still – if he hadn’t decided to quit smoking – who knows?

#20

Invention of the cotton gin to the american civil war.

© Photo: Mike_Savage_Ledger

#21

Im a little late but I have a good one for this.

My dad used to have a buddy who was in a tech startup and they had a meeting with a bigger company interested in a multi-million dollar buy out. Anyway my dad’s buddy was walking to his car and stepped in dog s**t, so he went back inside to either change his shoes or get a new pair. Well I am not sure what happened, but on the way back out he fell down some stairs and got all f****d up and couldnt make it to the meeting. He was the one supposed to give the presentation but instead of postponing it like a rational group, they had someone else try to fill in his place and completed butchered it. So they didnt get the million dollar buyout, and throughout the next 5 years their startup dwindled.

So essentially this company missed out on a multi million dollar buyout because the guys dog s**t in the wrong part of the yard.

#22

I scared my cat which in turn ran out the room, and scared my dog, which in turn ran out my front door, which caused a car to swerve in the street and k**l somebody walking on the sidewalk.

© Photo: Freetheslaves1000

#23

Millionaire man gives a million dollars to his son.

Son starts real estate business.

Son becomes controversial real estate mogul.

Son uses his money to put his name all over NY and a bunch of other things.

Son becomes reality show star, and fires people for funsies.

So famous and controversial, he gets roasted in Comedy Central.

Trying out comedy for the first time, Mike Sorrentino (aka The Situation) s***s the funny out of the room and makes Greg Giraldo roll over in his grave.

As the final punchline to his crappy-a*s stand-up, The Situation says “I think you should run for president.”

Son thinks “Maybe Mr. Situation is onto something here.” #yourenotfired

2016 presidential race, Donald Trump might win.

2017, America ends. #Hamiltonrollsoverinhisgravetoo.

#24

Star Trek: Voyager writers wanted to add a new character to contrast with the captain. Jerri Ryan got the part, and the separation placed a strain on her marriage, that eventually resulted in divorce. The divorce/custody proceedings lead to some rather nasty facts about her husband to come to light, resulting in him withdrawing his candidacy from the United States Senate for Illinois. His main rival went on to win, and from there, went on to become the first ever black president of the United States of America.

#25

The best example is JFK.

1. Born with one leg slightly shorter than the other, leading to his famously unstable back.

2. Football injury in college exacerbates back problems.

3. Injury during PT-109 incident in WW2 further worsens back.

4. Fast-forward to Dallas, Texas. November 22nd, 1963. The first shot that hit Kennedy in the back and exited his neck was survivable. He could have easily ducked out of the way after, but his back brace kept him upright, leaving his head completely exposed.

JFK could have been saved had his one d**n leg been the same size as the other.

#26

My sister’s muffler fell off her car on the way to a family function. It wasn’t a big deal, but it meant that she could no longer lend it to my mom later that week as it would be in the shop for repairs.

My mom had already been told she could use the car, and had already made a doctor’s appointment. My uncle volunteered to drive her instead.

This minor change in plans, altered when my uncle and aunt would be able to leave the city by a few hours. They were supposed to go to their farm, but instead my aunt waited at her mother’s while my uncle was dropping Mom off.

My aunt’s mother had a heart attack and would have been completely alone that afternoon if not for my sister’s car trouble. Because my aunt was there, she was able to call the paramedics and they were able to save her.

#27

I have the love of my life because of my 8th grade math teachers bad judgment.

In 8th grade, I was doing unusually well at algebra. So well that my teacher decided to recommend me for freshman year honors algebra. I was surprised because math had never been an interest or a strong suit, I was much better at my English classes.

Anyway, during that ill-fated, one-semester-long attempt at honors algebra, I met a guy (lets call him Nathan) who invited me to be part of his homecoming group, as I knew nobody at the school. One of the girls in that homecoming group (we’ll call her Linda) had a slightly younger sister (we’ll call her Anna) who tagged along for the drop-off at the meet up spot. I only caught a glimpse of Anna, but it burned into my mind. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, but I didn’t get to talk to her. Weeks later I got an invite to Linda’s birthday party, piggybacking on Nathans invite, as he was friends with that group already. At that party, I became friends with Anna, and I was in love with her for years before I did something about it.

We’re getting married in March. If that math teacher hadn’t had the terrible judgment to put me in a class I had no business being in, I would never have met anyone in that group, including my future wife.

Butterfly.

#28

When I was 3 years old, my father gave me a cheap, plastic toy airplane for Christmas. We didn’t have much money, and my parents did their best. I fell in love with aviation because of that toy. I mean, I’ve been obsessed with it my entire life. This drove me to enlist as a helicopter mechanic and spend 10 years in the army. Last year, my love of aviation drove me to buy a ticket, that I could barely afford, to the annual air show. It was there that I met a representative from a helicopter flight school and learned that I could use my G.I. Bill benefits to pay for flight school. Now, I’m a private helicopter pilot and I’m working towards additional ratings. All because we were really poor when I was a child. My dad ended up giving me the greatest gifts a parent could give a child when he gave me that toy plane…imagination and passion.

#29

I decide to use skip school one day, which my mom allowed. Since I stayed out, my mom decided to stay home and we would go fishing.

It didn’t rain, so we just sat around the house. My aunt we hadn’t seen in years decides to visit that day.

We take an impromptu trip to her house, where my aunt talks my mom into moving up there.

This event leads to my sister meeting her husband and having 2 kids; my other sister getting r***d and having a kid; my mom meeting my step father, having a child at 40, and nearly getting m******d by said husband.

All of these major life changing events can all be traced back to me skipping school.

#30

A man joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War. He got stationed in Bangkok, Thailand.

Another man, I’ll call him Sammy, grew up on a shrimp farm in Thailand. He wanted to be a rock and roll singer, so he moved to Bangkok to pursue his dream.

The Air Force man’s sister, I’ll call her Fonce, wanted to visit her brother. Fonce bought a plane ticket and went to Bangkok on her own. Fonce met up with her brother’s wife her first night in Bangkok. Fonce wanted to have a good time so they went out to a nightclub.

Sammy’s band was headlining at the nightclub in downtown Bangkok. He saw a leggy blonde cutting a rug on the dance floor. Sammy winked at her and the girl blushed. And when Sammy’s set was over he made it a point to track her down.

Fonce was coming out the bathroom when she met the lead singer of the band that had just gotten done performing. He couldn’t speak very good English, but his personality and charm were magnetic. He said his name was Sammy.

Sammy walked Fonce back to her room that night, but Fonce told him that was as far as he was getting. Sammy said he wouldn’t be deterred and he told her to come back to the nightclub the following night. And she did, for the next seven nights. And at the end of one of those nights, Fonce invited Sammy back into her room. And two weeks later, much to her parent’s surprise, Fonce called home and told them she’d gotten married.

Sammy and Fonce came to the United States and made a life together. Sammy worked his way up at the Safeway bread plant and Fonce worked as a secretary at Grand Auto. They had two children together, a girl and a boy. That girl was my older sister and that boy was obviously me.

The years passed and Fonce and Sammy grew distant. They’d been married for sixteen years, but they stopped sleeping in the same bedroom, and Fonce started to drop hints to her children that something was amiss in the marriage and she was thinking about leaving Sammy.

Then one day Fonce, my mom, called my sister and I out of school. I was in fourth grade and my sister was in seventh grade. And Mom told us that she was living Dad for good. We packed our things and lived in an apartment for awhile. Sammy tried to win Fonce back, but it was too late and she moved on. I think in time she’d come to regret her decision, but I’ve never heard her say this–I just suspect it.

Mom met a man on an AOL chatroom, and we moved to Indiana, leaving my sister behind. Terrible things happened to my sister back home and she eventually came to live with us, too.

Mom’s new husband, my stepdad, would get fired from his job in Indiana and we’d have to move to St. Louis.

I would finish high school and not really know what I wanted to do with my life, joining the military to give myself direction and discipline. It was the best decision I’d ever make.

I made a lot of great friends and got stationed in Washington D.C. But when my time came to an end there I had a choice to make: I could either go to a base in Georgia or go to a base in Las Vegas. I chose the latter, and that has made all the difference.

There I met a crazy girl who was going to college. She was super fun and we had a great summer together. But I was getting ready to deploy at the end of September, and she told me to get a Myspace so we could keep in touch. I did as she asked.

And then one day I had a friend request from a random girl. I figured two was better than one so I added the random girl, but remained faithful to the crazy one.

As crazy girls are wont to do, she broke up with me while I was deployed and I picked up with the random girl. The random girl was there to pick me up at the airport when I got home, and she hasn’t left my side since. Ten years have gone by and she’s still mine. She’s been with me through the good times and the bad.

I could go on forever, but the point is everyone’s own life is like the butterfly effect. We are all changing and influencing each others lives with each flapping of our wings.

And the crazy thing is, I owe my existence on this earth, I can trace my remote origins back, to the confluence of decisions that happened in 1979.

All of these things go back to my uncle joining the Air Force, my dad trying to make it as a musician, and my mom wanting to experience the world.

And if I go further back than that, I can trace my own mother’s existence to my grandpa getting a “Dear John” letter from his original girlfriend in WWII, and coming back from the war and marrying the woman who would become my grandmother.

The world is truly amazing like this. It really is. And if we all look back at our family lineage we can see the amazingness of factors that came together so we could be here in this world at this very moment in time.

Everyone has a story that’s similar to my own. We are all so interconnected and I think that’s why it’s so important for us to be kind and decent to one another, to care about the person sitting next to us as if they were a relative or friend. Because life has a way of interconnecting us all.

#31

My grandpa went off adventuring as a young man with some of his pals: a buddy who boxed and a buddy who played guitar. My grandpa didn’t have any special skill like that, so he washed dishes.

These three guys just ambled across America, boxing, strumming and scrubbing for enough cash to make it to the next town. After a while the adventures tapered off and the other two fellas made their way back to their corners of the world–but my grandpa couldn’t scrounge up the money to get back to Illinois.

So he kept washing dishes for quite some time, hoping for a lucky break. That break came in the form of a wallet he found lying on the sidewalk with enough cash for a bus ticket back home. He wasted no time.

He met my grandma back in Illinois, settled down, started a family. And as a result, I exist.

Sometimes I think about that man that lost his wallet, and how mad he must have been when he realized. I owe him my life.

#32

I tripped over a rug at work, but caught myself before I fell. I didn’t bother to fix it for whatever reason. An hour later my coworker (she’s an older lady) walked in and tripped on it too but she ended up falling face first into a door. She dislocated her shoulder pretty badly also and needs surgery, she’s been on medical leave for about three months. Last I heard she might also sue the company.

Whoops.

#33

First off let me tell you a little back story. My mom and dad were married in Mexico but soon after their wedding my father immigrated to the U.S. He was a legal resident so he could come and go as he wished yet my mom was not.
He would visit, get my mom pregnant and soon after go back to the U.S. to work.
Well, while living here he would carpool with a friend to go to work. He never missed a day because he was saving up to bring my mom, my two siblings and I to the U.S. so we could all finally be together.
One cold winter morning he woke up and decided not to go to work. It was heavily snowing out. That never stopped him from going to work yet that day he decided otherwise.
It turned out that the guy that he would carpool with got in a car accident and died.
It’s scary to think that my dad would have died along with him. We would have never come to live in the U.S. and overall life would be so different for my family and I.

#34

The biggest example of this is history must be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. One m****r that lead to a world war, and that war fueled the fire for what would be the second world war, which then again helped lead to the cold war.

#35

On Monday, September 10th, 2001 my father received a call to let him know his job interview for tomorrow had to be postponed until that Thursday. Because his would-be employer had overbooked his schedule, my father was not in the World Trade Center when it went down.

#36

My mom had uncomfortable digestive symptoms for a year or so that couldn’t be explained. Her doctor ordered a colonoscopy and discovered colon cancer. She quickly had surgery and recovered well.

She decided that it was important that my dad be screened just in case. Turns out he also had colon cancer. Six months after my mom’s surgery, my dad had a portion of his colon removed as well and recovered quickly.

After recovery, my mom still had the same initial symptoms. It turns out she was lactose intolerant. Since both parents had colon cancer and no tell tale symptoms, my mom decided I needed to be screened as well.

So my mom becoming intolerant to lactose later in life lead to me getting an otherwise completely uncalled for colonoscopy at the age of 27. :(.

#37

In 9th century England, a mom got a book of poetry and told her kids that whoever learned to read it and memorized all the poems first could have the book. One of her sons wins the book. He grows up to be Alfred the Great, king of England. Around the year 880, decided he wanted every young man in England to be able to read books in English, too, but there weren’t many books in English. He had a bunch of books translated into English (and translated a few himself), and had copies sent out to all the monasteries so they could teach people to read. The monks taught people to read in English, the people taught other people to read in English, now here we all are on reddit.

#38

Online dating back in 2012.. A random girl with no picture and a very short bio looked at my OKCupid profile, but didn’t message me. I never message somebody with no picture (what are the chances you are attracted to them?!) and on top of that we had a 37% match rating. On a whim I sent her a one-liner.

Tied the knot in 2014 and very happily married. That 10 second message fundamentally altered my life’s path including what continent I’d spend the rest of my life on (Europe vs the US).

#39

I applied for a job on a whim. I didn’t really think I was qualified for it, and it was over 200 miles from home so I didn’t expect to take the job even if it was offered.

Well, the interview went better than expected and I could not turn down the salary. Through a Facebook post, I reconnected with a high school friend who had a house with his fiancée.

Cue me moving over…I introduced my new roommates (we’ll call them Don and Jamie) to a couple (Dan and Janelle) I knew through another mutual friend.

Long story short, Dan is in the process of divorcing his wife Janelle, Jamie kicked Don out and Dan is now living here with Jamie. All because I applied for a job.

#40

Remus and Romulus disputed over where they should found Rome. At a point they simply started at the sky to await an omen to determine which was right. No omen to resolve the dispute came, and eventually Romulus k****d Remus and became ‘the’ founder. If there had been an omen, Remus might have been the founder, changing the course of Rome and consequently the world.

#41

Boyz 2 Men. They formed in a bathroom at school. A couple of them were in the choir and practicing, another one randomly has to use the bathroom and chimes in.

#42

I wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for my grandma wearing a yellow sweater. My grandparents worked in the same building for several years and my grandpa would always walk right past my grandma on his way to his office. One day my grandma decided to wear a yellow sweater to work that day and it caught his eye. He immediately proceeded to ask my grandma out and they’ve been together ever since. She was planning on quitting her job in the next two weeks, so there is a good chance that he never would have noticed her or met her if she hadn’t worn that sweater.

Similarly, I would not be with my boyfriend, if it wasn’t for a stupid blue umbrella, but that’s another story.

EDIT: Okay, since many people have asked for the umbrella story, I will tell it. Although I’m not sure how exciting it is.

One fateful morning during my freshman year of college, it began pouring rain, forcing me to buy an umbrella as I had forgotten to bring one from home. Two days later, despite the forecast, it began thunderstorming while I was in class.

This wouldn’t have been a big deal if I hadn’t have forgotten my d**n umbrella. Normally, I would just suck it up and walk in the rain, however, I happened to be carrying my laptop that day and my next class was at least a fifteen minute walk. Lucky for me, the student bookstore was in the same building as my current class, so I purchased a second umbrella.

Fast forward two months later, a friend of mine, “Steve”, invites me to a study session at a coffee shop with a mutual female friend, “Laura”, and his friend he met in his guitar class, “Jack”.

As we are getting ready to leave and meet up at the coffee shop, it begins raining. Realizing I have two umbrellas, I offer to give one to Steve for the walk to Laura’s car. We finally get to the coffee shop as it stopped raining, and that is where I meet Jack. I introduce myself and say hello, but for the most part, I just stick to doing my work while Steve talks to Jack. A little while later, Steve gets a call from his dad and he has a family dinner he forgot about so he has to go, leaving me to sit awkwardly between Laurie and Jack.

Laurie is too busy typing a paper to talk, so we sit in silence. A few minutes later, my laptop dies and I realize I forgot my charger so I have nothing to do besides sit and wait until Laurie wants to leave. So I decide to strike up a conversation with Jack. We end up really hitting it off and joking around. It is also around this time that I realize Steve left with my umbrella. Jack and I end up devising a plan to mess with Steve and act really angry that he took my umbrella. I proceed to send him a dozen messages talking about how it was a family heirloom and equally ridiculous stuff, sending Jack and I into fits of laughter.

This goes on for about an hour, until Laurie decides she’s ready to go. I say my goodbyes to Jack, figuring I won’t see him again anyway. Laurie and I get to her car and as I slide into the passenger seat, my foot touches something.

It’s the umbrella.

Steve never took it inside, we sent all those messages to him for nothing (much to his confusion). Thinking this is quite funny, I desperately want to tell Jack, because I thought he would find it funny as well. It’s then I realize I never got his number. So I decide to search him on instagram, hoping I don’t come off as creepy, and send him a picture of the umbrella with the caption “Well, this ruins everything….”

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I never would have contacted him again if it weren’t for that umbrella. We’ve been dating for almost nine months now, all because I had to buy a second umbrella after being trapped inside by the rain and forgetting my first. Not that exciting of a story, but it’s interesting to think back on the events that lead up to us dating. I could have walked out of that coffee shop, never to see him again, but I didn’t.

BONUS: Laurie and Steve are now dating.

#43

A few years ago I was working at Taco Bell when the power went out. After an hour with no electricity, Boss decides we can all go home early. It’s still pretty early so my friend and I decide to go for walk together, where we talk about guys and other girl things. I mention really wanting to meet a guy who listens to my favorite band (they weren’t very known at the time.) The next day I’m back at work when this dude comes in with his mom and sisters, wearing said bands shirt. Internally freaking out, I take their order and pretty much ambush him as they’re leaving. This is very unlike me, I’ve never approached anyone first but I remember what I said the day before and it gives me courage. I write down my contact info for him and we talk, quickly realizing we’re like the same person. Turns out he and his family live several states away and just happened to stop at the Tbell on a day I was working. Fast forward to now, we’ve lived together for over a year and have a dog.

TL;DR Power goes out at Taco Bell I work at, tell friend about my perfect man, he walks into workplace the next day, we live happily ever after.

#44

Tl;dr: Stubbing my toe cured my social anxiety.

I had been a vegetarian for 8 years. In the past year or so, I had been feeling weaker physically, getting lightheaded and dizzy easily. Then one day, I stub my toe which hurt like hell. Being physically weak I couln’t handle the pain, passed out, hit my head and as a result had a concussion. For me that was the last straw, I did some research to find out why I had been feeling so weak (probably should have seen a doctor though). The symptoms I had indicated a vitamin b12 deficiency, which is very common in vegetarians. It can go unnoticed for years without any symptoms, which is why I hadn’t noticed anything before. I decided to start eating meat again. After a few months I realize my social anxiety is much less than it used to be. I did some more research, turns out vitamin b12 deficiency can worsen anxiety and depression. If I hadn’t stubbed my toe I would probably still be a weak, socially anxious vegetarian.

#45

My dad died in 2005.

My mom put my brother and I in grief group.

She met a man, whose wife had died and had his kids in the same grief group.

They get married in 2009. He’s now my stepdad.

My stepdad introduced me to a guy who works on his job site, in 2007.

I married that man in 2013.

We now have 2 kids together.

We also introduced our 2 best friends who are also married and have a kid.

Thanks, Dad. ♡.

#46

**A stroke saved my friend’s life.**

She suffered a stroke. The doctors put her on blood thinners to prevent another stroke.

The blood thinners caused an undiagnosed polyp in her colon to bleed.

The blood in her stool prompted her to get a colonoscopy.

The colonoscopy found the polyp, and many others, and they were **cancerous**.

The polyps were removed, she’s doing fine now.

But the doctor said that if the polyps were not found, they would have developed into colon cancer.

So the stroke saved her from having colon cancer.

#47

Not mine but my aunt.

She was always, *always,* on time to everywhere. It’s trauma left over from her childhood. She lived in the Bronx and worked in lower Manhattan (that’s like a 45/60 min subway ride) so she usually had to get up pretty early to get to work on time.

One night, the power in her building went out. Zero idea why, to this day she lives in the same building and no one knows why/it was the only building affected. Her digital alarm had reset when the power came back on at dawn so her alarm did not wake her up. She woke up at 7:30AM, with 30 mins before she should be at work.

Panicking, she got ready and ran to the subway. The subway by her apartment was having maintenance issues and she got stuck for 20 mins three stops away. For the first time in her *life* (she *loves* her job) she called into work sick saying she’d be in too late and would work overtime the next day.

She walked back to her apartment and fell asleep. She woke up about 4? hours later when one of my other aunts was pounding on her door. She answered the door, my other aunt was hysterical because she hadn’t been answering her phone.

And that’s how a weird electrical mishap caused my aunt’s alarm clock to reset, making her late, missing her train, and avoiding being in the building next to the World Trade Center on 9/11.

#48

My friend asked me if I wouldn’t mind setting up an IRC server for him, his boss had asked him to do it and he hadn’t done it before but knew I’d done it recently. 15 minutes work.

* The server was for a client, he said it was cool if I wanted to make myself and IRC Operator and hang out on the server.
* I was about to drop out of University, his client and his boss was impressed enough I knew Linux and could quickly implement an IRC server so offered me a job. My first proper IT job.
* Made some friends on that server, one of whom I ended up starting a relationship with.
* Two years later I moved to the USA to marry her
* Used my experience from that first IT job to land myself a job in the USA and that started my career here.
* Got my green card soon after, now I’m a US citizen.
* 22 years later, we have three kids and are still together.

Sometimes doing a favor for a friend can have very big consequences!

#49

-My Grandmother used to take me to theatre performances and encouraged me to take classes at a local community theatre.

-I have no talent so I went backstage at 15 and started in tech theatre.

– She challenged me that if I read Les Miserable, unabridged and give her a report on it she would pay for a trip for me to see the show in London and go see Paris.

– I read it, I went to London and Paris with my father for two weeks.

-This, along with my portfolio I built in that community theatre, landed me into a stellar university.

-The story of reading Les Miserable and being rewarded with going to Europe the University selected me to spend a semester studying theatre in London.

– Because I spent so much time abroad my first job out of college was a world tour with Sesame Street.

-I have since done a domestic Broadway tour and a short stint with Cirque du Soliel in Europe.
-I have been to 48 states and 30 countries doing a career I love because my Grandmother had me do a book report.

#50

I met a dude in line for a Radiohead concert when I was 17, we hung out all day and he and his roommate went back to the States. We spoke seldom after that – he was one of those guys with nothing about them on the internet, no real way get a hold of them or anything. I was young and impressionable, I wrote a poem about meeting him – not romantically, it was just nice to have a profound conversation with someone and at that point in my life I was quite lonely and it moved me.

Around six years later, a woman messages me on Facebook and says ‘when I Google this guy your poem is the only thing that comes up, and I just left my phone in his car, and he’s supposed to move to Spain tomorrow.’ I search my Facebook photos for that day, find his roommate, add her again and tell her what’s up – she says she’ll get in touch.

They manage to link and he gives back her phone. He cancels his trip to Spain. They’re married now!

#51

My dad has Crohn’s disease and he was having a flare up.

My mom wasn’t able to take him to the hospital so he asked my neighbor to drive him.

As they arrive at the hospital, my dad starts trying to exchange cell numbers with our neighbor EXCEPT – at that moment the neighbor started having a heart attack.

They were both still in the car and it was in drive still. My dad jumps into action in trying to stop the car (it rolled into some grass so fortunately nothing happened). A nurse was finishing her shift and saw what was happening and sprang into action, saving his life.

If my dad didn’t have a flare up and need a ride to the hospital, Pete likely would have died at home :/.

#52

I picked a book off a bookshelf, largely at random, off a bookshelf when I was 15. Got my best friend into the series. Years later, while in med school, he meets a girl through the series fangroup and thinks I might be interested in meeting her. That girl and our children are sitting in the living room right now, each reading our own thing.

Best wingman ever.

#53

The death of Jeremy Clarkson’s mother.

Clarkson’s mom died which caused him to become upset and irritable resulting in his wife and himself getting a divorce. The death and divorce he experienced made him worse to the point where he released his frustration on his producers face (by punching him, I should add). That in turn gave the BBC a distraction from the horrible person they had working for them and to keep that out of the public eye, they fired Clarkson. Since Clarkson was the most important part of Top Gear, Hammond, May, and the majority of the crew followed Clarkson out.

Top Gear was one of the highest rated, most watched shows on television, and one of the BBC’s biggest profit centers. Millions of people were upset with the BBC in the first place, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The BBC began to lose credibility and viewership on both their shows and new programs, so they began spewing nonsense about immigration and whatever else they could find that was controversial enough to increase their revenue to make up for Top Gear. This caused the British public to get angry at the EU for trying to force “dangerous” immigrants on UK soil, causing them to have a vote. Thanks to the BBC’s spewing, the vote passed and the UK will now leave the EU.

Time for the FUTURE. An already scorned Scotland and frustrated Northern Ireland will vote to secede from the UK, likely staying within the EU. The pound will continue to fall until it is far less valuable than freedom money. In a desperate attempt to regain economic surety, the UK, now just England and Wales, will petition to rejoin the EU. The EU will politely but firmly tell them to shove it up their a*s. The UK will get even more desperate. Since they can’t join the EU, they are going to take over EU territory. They start by invading Scotland and regaining that territory. They then attempt to take back Ireland, but realize that another island is useless to them, so they sail across the channel to invade and occupy France. France rolls over, as per usual, and the UK then becomes England, Wales, and France. The EU is furious, and World War 3 begins.

Since the United States is super good friends with the UK, they join their side. The rest of the EU is against them. Australia is barbecuing. The UK is trying to keep their territory in France while fighting to the East, and simultaneously slowly taking over Spain and parts of Portugal. The whole world is distracted by what is happening in Europe, and that makes ISIS mad and gives them an opportunity to strike. Player 3 has arrived. ISIS starts blowing stuff up, turning Europe into Swiss cheese (ironically avoiding Switzerland altogether). ISIS gains so much of a foothold in Eastern Europe that the EU, UK, and Merica finally stop fighting each other and turn their attention/bullets to ISIS.

After 6 years of fighting, ISIS is destroyed, and Europe is wounded but unified. Due to giving so much support against ISIS and helping to restore Europe’s territory, the EU permits the re-entry of the UK, with the condition that they give back France. They comply. The UK, wanting to thank the US for their help, gives the US Wales in order to give the US a domestic port for trade on European soil. Wales becomes the 51st state. With the destruction of ISIS, peace begins to be restored in the middle east, with western democracy adopted in Saudi Arabia. The whole world enters the most peaceful and prosperous era in all of human history. Trump is elected for his third term.

#54

I was driving down the highway, when a rather large bug splattered on my windshield. At the next stop light, I was using the windshield mist/washer thingy, which made me not notice the light had turned green. I hear a honk from behind me. I glance into the rear view mirror and saw the most beautiful woman in the driver seat. I really wanted to strap her on like a gas mask. We both took off and headed our respective directions, but I couldn’t get her face out of my mind, and what it would look like if it was splattered just like that bug, but with my c*m.

I got to work and went to the restroom to squeeze one off. After finishing I headed out not realizing my c*m had be-speckled the tile below the toilet. Queue the next guy using the restroom right after me, and I’m now known as the creepy guy that jerks off in the bathroom at work.

All because of that f*****g s******l bug on my windshield.

#55

If you get DirectTV you’ll get disconnected for no reason. When you get disconnected for no reason, you stay up all night on hold with customer service. When you stay up all night with customer service, you are tired the next day. When you are tired you do not do well on interviews. When you fail interviews you are rejected from art school. When you are rejected from art school you go into politics. When you go into politics you become Das Fuhrer. When you become Das Fuhrer, two Japanese towns get nuked. Do not get DirectTV.

#56

History in general is one big, confusing butterfly effect. Even events that have no obvious connections do. I’ll give an example: 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if Queen Victoria hadn’t been born with a mutation on one of her X chromosomes. It sounds crazy, but hear me out.

1. Queen Victoria was born with a mutation that made her a carrier of the blood disorder hemophilia. It was likely a spontaneous mutation, as there is no evidence of it in her maternal line until her birth.

2. Victoria passes the mutation on to 3 of her 9 children, and from there on to numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She passes it to her daughter, Alice, who passes it to her own daughter, Alexandra. Alexandra marries Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and passes the faulty gene on to their only son, Alexei.

3. The family becomes reclusive as a result of their son’s illness. Alexandra forms a close bond with the mad monk, Rasputin, because he seems to be able to manage Alexei’s bleeding. The royal family is already unpopular with the Russian public due to Nicholas being a s****y ruler and being too dependant on his equally s****y advisors. Their reclusiveness is interpreted as indifference towards the Russian people, and their association with Rasputin as seen as general insanity. Although there was a lot of animosity towards them, these things are the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Rasputin is m******d by minor members of the Russian nobility, and soon after the Russian Revolution starts.

4. Nicholas and his entire family are m******d by revolutionaries. The USSR is born, and becomes one of the world’s superpowers.

5. The USSR invades Afghanistan in the late 1970s. This leads to all kinds of trouble, and their eventual retreat leads to the Afghan Civil War.

6. The Taliban and Al Qaeda both come out of the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and the subsequent civil war.

7. Al Qaeda plotts the 9/11 attacks under the protection of the Taliban, and carry them out.

Is it convoluted? Yes, but there is a connection. Without the USSR, there would be no Al Qaeda, and Queen Victoria’s genetic disorder played a huge role in the formation of the USSR.

That’s just an example. History is full of absurd s**t like this.

#57

My ex’s poor choice of words on a text message enraged me, coincidentally in those 10 mins of rage I was asked if I wanted to do a student exchange… I said yes, they asked where, I said the furthest you can send me.

I spent the best 6 months of my life abroad, I came back home (small town) and my insight was different, everything changed completely, and I think of going back someday… just cuz I got mad…

#58

This is a movie, but in Jurassic Park. Lex and Timmy are hiding in the kitchen and then Tim runs into the freezer because the door is open. There’s ice on the floor and this causes the raptor to slip and fall resulting in Tim and Lex narrowly escaping being eaten by the raptor. This causes Tim and Lex to find Alan and Ellie and then Lex turns on all the security doors, communications and fences in the park. Which allows all the characters to escape. NOW YOU MAY ASK WHY WAS THE FREEZER DOOR OPEN? It’s because Hammond was up all night eating the ice cream because the power was out and caused water to melt on the floor of the freezer. Then when Ellie turned back on the power, said melted water refroze and caused a thin layer of ice to form, causing the raptor to fall. If Hammond hadn’t eaten the ice cream and left the freezer door open, all main characters may have been k****d and resulted in Chris Pratt never training raptors. All because of ice cream.

#59

Before I begin, I need to share two driving tips my father taught me. First, when stopped at a red light always leave at least half a car length between your car and the vehicle in front. Second, when stopped like that, slightly turn the car’s wheels. Both tips can help in the event a vehicle hits your car from behind.

So at the time, I had two children: one in pre-school and a 10 month old. On Sunday night while taking the baby from her backseat car seat, I didn’t feel the lock was secure enough. My then husband watched the kids while I went and bought a new one. I wanted to check the lock so in the store’s lot, I tested it in the front passenger seat. I figured when I got home, I’d remove the old car seat and put the new one in the back. Long story, I ended up driving my son to pre-school with the baby in the front seat, new car seat.

After dropping him off, I was stopped at a red light on a 6 lane “beltway”. A flat bed trailer carrying barbed wire was @ 8 feet in front. My wheels were turned to the left.

A metro bus, doing over 50mph hit me from the back. My car was pushed to the left onto a green space, past the tracter trailer, through a green light intersection and around 30 feet beyond.

The back of my car, a deisel Mercedes ( a gift from my father several months before to replace my gas fueled Jeep) was so compressed from the hit.
it seemed to disappear.

I checked the baby – didn’t move her – and she was confused but fine. I was fine. The man in the tractor trailer had been thrown through the back Windows, entangled in the barbed wire and dead.

First responders said they expected to find me impaled and on fire.

So, because of the diesel car, my father’s driving tips and buying a new car seat the night before but lacking time to place it in the back, we survived an accident when the odds were against us.

#60

Was in film school. I privately asked my professor about film festivals before class one day. She told me we’ll talk about that later (she never did), but asked if I knew about Linda’s project (a fellow student). I talk to Linda. Get a job on the production she’s working on. Meet a musician who works at the studio. Ask if he needs an assistant. Basically pulls the same move my professor did, saying we’d talk about it later, but asked if I knew about this movie in town. He suggests I go down in the morning and apply. Go down at 7AM. Set dressers were gearing up to leave. I ask where to apply, and the boss takes me to someone in the office. Got shrugged off. As I’m leaving, that same boss asks if I’d be able to help for a day or two, right before they jumped in the truck and left. Come in the next day. They fire someone they hated and replaced them with me. Sign me into the union.

Flash foward a few years and I get a text asking if I could work on set (never done it before), and only knew my name because they looked at the roster of a period piece shot a few years prior. I was on that list, despite only working the last 4 days of the movie. They texted that list and I was the first to reply. Worked on set. My on set career blew up from that point.

Flash foward a few years later and I’m in Iceland, on top a glacier, hanging out with Chris Pratt and JK Simmons. All because I asked my professor if we would ever talk about film festivals.

#61

My wonderful 2 year old daughter was not planned.

But thanks to her, I decided to have a vasectomy. I had always had one slightly enlarged testicle due to a mountain biking accident 10 years prior.

My urologist had it biopsied because it didn’t look right.

Turns out I had had testicular cancer for an impossible to determine period of time. Four rounds of chemo later and I’m perfectly fine. Had I not had my daughter, I would have probably had much worse results years later when it finally made it’s presence known via pain and had spread into my body.

So my daughter technically saved my life, which is knowledge I’m sure she’ll use on with great glee during her teenage years when I’m trying to punish her, or I’ll wait to tell it to her on her wedding day when I make a speech.

#62

Back in the MySpace days, I found out one day that you could set GIFs as your profile picture. I like penguins, found a dancing penguin and it became my permanent pic.

The dancing penguin caught the attention of someone who messaged me to compliment it. She also likes penguins. We became close friends nearly immediately.

Long story short, nearly every major event in her life she attributes to knowing me. She first moved out of her parents place to live with my sister in another city. She met her first husband there, had her daughter. She got a divorce and she eventually got re-married to one of my best friends who had been in love with her since I’d introduced them. They are all three (her, my friend and her daughter) disgustingly happy.

Dancing penguin GIFs change lives.

#63

My dad is 64 in 2 months, he has played soccer since he was young. He went to a dinner with his old soccer buddies and they convince him to play a match with them, he hasn’t played in over 10 years.

He runs every day so he decided it was a solid adult decision, 10 min in he gets kicked in the calf and comes off.

1hr later he leaves, passes out in the parking lot (he thought he just tripped and fell) drives home and tells my mom his leg is sore.

30min later he is breathing like someone who has the wind knocked out of him. Late night ER visit they find he has a burst vein in his calf, can’t understand the pain in his chest or bad breathing, run some bloods.

HE HAS A CLOT IN HIS LUNG, doc says it was there for awhile and had he not come in, he may have just not waken up 1 morning.

Unfortunately his man brain just sees his decision to play footy as a life changing decision and not the stupidity that it was.

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