[NBLUG/talk] No such thing as coincidence?

[Jack Smith]

OK guys, I was just over in Japan visiting Libby (my oldest daughter) and
tried takoyaki.  Sort of a round pancake thingy sold on a stick.  It's made
with fish broth and octopus and made in special pans with hemispherical
dimples in it.  Libby goes on and on about how much she likes them and can't
get them in the U.S.

I decide to make her happy (and besides, I liked them too).

I hunt all over Google and find recipes, but no takoyaki pans.

Briana (youngest daughter) and I are watching a recorded TV show, maybe CSI,
and a commercial comes on selling the pans to make "puff pancakes".  I don't
write down the URL.

Two days later, I can't remember it.  Briana can and I look it up.  While I
still have it up on the computer, Amber (middle daughter) wakes up (works
midnights) and walks by and says, "Oh yeah, we have those at Walgreens."

I call and they're out.  Make plans for Amber to order one the next time
she's in.

Thursday night is the next night she works there, but she doesn't order it,
because the same night a truck comes in carrying them.

The next morning I buy one and try making pancakes in it with mixed
results.  That evening Linda (my ex) locks her keys in her car in Livonia
and needs someone to let the dog out.  Both daughters are unavailable so I
go over.

When Linda shows up I tell her the story as an amusing coincidence.  She
says, "Oh yeah, an ebleskuer pan".  Seems she knew someone whose mother made
them.  From Denmark.  I look them up and they're called aebleskiver over
there (no fish broth or octopus).

Now it's a really amusing story so I send an e-mail to all three daughters.
Somehow, I accidentally send the e-mail to NBLUG, in San Francisco, where it
gets read.

The person who reads it had a friend in school (think: 1984, 1985) whose mom
made them at some kind of international day, and _recently_ he remembered
them and was trying to remember what they were called.

So, no such thing as coincidence?

-- 
Jack Smith

English doesn't borrow from other languages -- English follows other
languages down dark alleys and takes what it wants.
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