Commentary: Stranger than fiction
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Everyone experiences coincidences. Some people believe they’re messages from God. Others perceive them as manifestations of the deceased, the supernatural, or a stray bit of multiverse. I figure that humans — and every other thing — are molecules in a galaxy-sized mosh pit, subject to infinitely random collisions.
I’ve experienced my own share of truly bizarre coincidences, and I’m not talking about the time you finished a miniseries starring Nicole Kidman, and the next thing your streaming service recommended was … another Nicole Kidman miniseries. That’s not coincidence; that’s algorithm — paired with Kidman’s fierce determination not to turn 60 without a fight.
I’m talking about the kinds of collisions that really mess with your head. For example:
• A few months ago I watched the 2024 comedy series Fantasmas. One episode featured a character who said he had designed “The Dress,” a 2015 phenomenon that generated ten million tweets in less than a week. Apparently the garment looked blue and black to some people, while others saw it as gold and white. The very next day, I was reading the 2022 book How Minds Change. The author makes a point about perceptual differences using, you guessed it, “The Dress.”
• In an episode of the recent TV series “The Residence,” the maid’s daughter is shown reading a book. Book titles are important clues in drama, so I noted the title; it was one I’ve never heard of called “The Murder of Roger Akroyd.” The next day, I’m watching the 1979 movie “Agatha.” It’s set in 1926, and in the movie, she’s attending a literary luncheon honoring the release of her new book — you guessed it — “The Murder of Roger Akroyd.”
• For months I’d been shopping for a kind of purse called a “wallet-on-a-string.” I’d searched several off-island stores but none of their offerings was just right. Then one day I was walking past the Granny’s Attic dump truck. It was empty except for something stuck in the slot behind the cab: the perfect “wallet-on-a-string!”
• At a friend’s for dinner in 2016, I told everyone how much I loved the Steely Dan song “Babylon Sisters.” Halloween was fast approaching, and when my husband Jeff and I came home we saw that The Simpson’s annual “Treehouse of Horror” episode had just dropped. We turned it on in time to hear a joke about how long the intro is to “Babylon Sisters.”
• Like many islanders, we had a bad time with yellowjackets last summer. One day Jeff was attacked while mowing the lawn. I tried to locate the nest when, atypically unannounced, our Tacoma pest control guy appeared in the driveway. We spotted the tunnel entrance tucked into the tree roots, he whipped out his tank and hose, and … let’s just say it’s rare to have a problem’s discovery and solution in such satisfying proximity.
• Jeff and I had never re-watched the 1991 biopic “The Doors,” so in 2012 we recorded it from a mainstream movie channel. Jeff remarked on the blurred-out behinds and chests. I said, “Yeah, this network makes everyone into Barbie dolls.” Thirty seconds later, the scene changed to a press conference given by the band, where a reporter asked Jim Morrison, “How does it feel to be thought of as a live Barbie doll?”
• On a writers’ website I read about an upcoming workshop in Sewanee, Tennessee. Just twelve hours later, I boarded the ferry to Fauntleroy behind a car with a Sewanee window sticker! Not weird enough? Five hours later it boarded ahead of me, again, for the trip back to the island.
• One morning I finished a multi-day period of re-watching the Hunger Games movies, which were released between 2012 and 2015. That night when I turned on the TV, a “Simpsons” from May of 2014 was in its final minute. It showed Homer and Marge sitting in a movie theater watching the Hunger Games.
You might be thinking, “Does this woman do nothing all day except watch TV, read books, and shop for wallets-on-a-string?” To that I reply: “I’m retired! Shut up!”
It’s true that I am a great patron of the arts. This means many of my “WTF” moments are inspired by those arts, which by amazing coincidence, can be purchased with money stored in a small purse with a thin strap, worn bandolier-style.
But after sorting through hundreds of stranger-than-fiction moments, I chose entertainment-heavy bizarreries for this column because movie release and book publication dates make it clear how unconnected these coincidences were. Why did they occur? Chaos theory? Destiny? Zeus? My dead Uncle Harry? I don’t know. Is The Dress blue and black, or gold and white?
Cindy Hoyt is an island comedy writer, novelist, and high plains drifter. Check her out at cindyhoyt.com.
