The 2 of us walked around the area, but couldn’t find the dog. I offered to print and place posters. We went upstairs, she gave me a photo of the dog and I went to the copy center. I put up posters on every doorway, and then I heard barking behind me — that’s when Lina was found, I guess she saw the poster that she was lost.
- I visited my school teacher, haven’t seen her for 6 years. We chatted, she told me about her daughter. And I was like, what daughter? She only has a grown-up son.
She says she adopted a girl. She took a new class and there was a girl who didn’t have a notebook or stationery. The teacher told her, “Tell your mum to buy this and that for school.” And then all children said, “She doesn’t have a mum, she’s an orphan!”
And the girl turned out to be modest, obedient, diligent. Her mother disappeared a long time ago, and her grandmother-guardian sent her to the orphanage. The teacher would bring her a beautiful notebook or give her something to eat. So they became attached to each other.
And one day the girl asked her, “Are you my mum?” The teacher didn’t even know what to say. She told her husband at home, so they decided to adopt. She’s been living with them for 5 years, everything is fine. I’m so happy for them!
- Found £160 in cash on a river bank, while I was discussing how I was too broke to afford a festival ticket with my girlfriend at the time. No idea how it got on the river bank, far away from the town. River bank is the wrong kind of bank to deposit your cash.
- I went on holiday with my husband to a faraway land, checked into a small but very nice hotel overlooking the ocean. The first night we met a nice older couple at the hotel. Toward the end of our conversation, we found out that they were the owners of the place and offered us to move into the suite that was available.
We thought there was a trick, and it’s not for free, but the evening before departure, when the owners came to say goodbye to us, they said that we reminded them very much of themselves in their youth. I came back from holiday pregnant, so I don’t even know when we’ll be able to visit them again.
- I was still little then. We went to the woods to pick mushrooms. My brother and I climbed a hill to look around and found a hole with 3 puppies. We got excited and started petting them. Dad called us, we told him to join us.
He looked at us, then at the puppies, and… He threw the basket with mushrooms, grabbed us under his armpits, and ran. We were offended at him — the puppies were so cool, and he took us away…
Daddy ran past Mom and shouted, “Run!” Mom followed him in confusion. We got to the car and heard a long wolf howl from the woods. Only at that moment that my brother and I figure out what puppies they were.
- My husband and I were on a plane, and we were given the aisle seats in the middle part of 5 seats, and also in different rows. Well, it’s a 4-hour flight, we’ll get by without each other. Then a guy from my husband’s row comes up to me and asks to change seats. I agree, we sit separately anyway, what’s the difference.
So, my husband is on the outer left side now, and I am on the right side. There are 3 empty seats between us. And you know what? Nobody was seated in them! So, we raised the armrests and lied down there, just the two of us!
- My mother gave me a very nice necklace. One morning I went to scratch my neck and I didn’t feel it. I guess I didn’t put the latch on properly, and it fell off, so I got super bummed out because it was really nice.
A few hours later, I found it in my shoe. It fell down my shirt, down my pants (with a belt), and into my left shoe, which had been tightly laced.
- In my third year at university, I was literally a couple of points short of a good grade. This would have helped me keep my scholarship. The teacher seemed to sympathize with me, reminded me of all my past merits, but I was still a little short.
Suddenly he asks me to turn my back, runs his fingers over it, and asks, “How many cats do you have?” I say that I have 3. And he says, “Yeah, I see the fur on your jumper.” And then he gives me the necessary grade! It turned out that he is very fond of animals and often helps shelters.
- Applied for a job that was way out of my league and the pay was more than twice what I was making at the time, and included pension, full benefits, all that good stuff. I showed up quite early for the interview, and had some time to kill, so I sat in the lobby reading some industry magazines.
One article was about the top 10 threats to this industry, which I made a point of reading and soaking in as much as I could. Eventually I get called into the interview, and everything is going okay for the most part. This industry and role are both new to me, and I think it may have shown during the interview as a weak spot, but then I get asked, “What do you see as potential issues within our industry/business.”
I was so excited I almost jumped out of the seat, and went off in great detail about everything I had just learned. The interviewers were very impressed, and little did they know that had I been asked that exact same question just 30 minutes earlier, I would have had nearly nothing to say. I got the job.
- My mother-in-law gave me an old antique sewing machine for my birthday. My husband laughed, but I liked it. And 5 years later, he left me. For a young mistress. My husband, a lawyer, took away our car and flat.
When my mother-in-law heard about it, she called me and invited me over. And then she confided in me that there were real diamonds inside the machine. They were left by her grandmother. She apologized for her son and invited me to live with her.
And you won’t believe it: we moved to France, bought a house there with the money from the diamonds. She’s a marvelous woman.
- Many years ago I was totally broke, even working 2 jobs. I would eat macaroni and hotdogs or tuna every night. I couldn’t afford to put gas in my car, so I’d walk to my job.
One evening, while walking home in the dark around 11:00 p.m, I saw a $50 bill on the snow. After picking it up, my immediate thought was I could buy groceries, but there was thought that another person might be as broke as me who lost the money. So I stood in a field for an hour freezing thinking the person who lost the money would come looking for it, but they never did.
I can’t begin to tell you how much finding the $50 impacted me. Not only could I eat but put gas in my car. It seemed my life changed at that moment, which it did. It changed my thoughts, I had chances to succeed, which happened.
- My son was 6 months old and needed a liter of milk every day. But the allowance was barely enough to live on. I’m walking, thinking about it. Suddenly, a bloke comes up to me:
— Hi! Aren’t you scared to walk alone at night?
— No.
— I’ll still walk you home!
I condescendingly said nothing.
— Why are you in such a hurry? Is your husband waiting?
— A baby.
— A baby?
— Yes.
— Do you feed it with your own milk or cow’s milk?
— Cow’s milk.
— Oh, I deliver milk from the countryside. It’s not skimmed yet, for the factory. I’ll bring it to you. It’s better than shop milk. Just boil it.
— How much a liter?
— Nothing.
The next morning, he did leave a jar of milk on my doorstep. It went on like this for 3 months. He never once came into the house, not even for a cup of tea.
And at the beginning of April, I got a job in the editorial office of a magazine, they paid me in advance. And the next morning, there was no milk on my doorstep. My milkman disappeared. Melted away like spring snow.
Luck doesn’t always favor us, and that’s just a part of life. However, when misfortune strikes in love, it tends to sting a little more deeply. The 13 stories in this article revolve around romantic encounters that went wildly off the rails. Despite the chaos, you might just discover a touch of humor in their disastrous twists.
