Some time ago I took my car in for some routine maintenance; probably an oil change. I was called to the desk to pay my bill and pick up my keys and, although it seemed they were the keys that had been used to drive the car to the ready line, I realized that they were not mine. I said so. The clerk smiled and said, politely, yes they were, that those keys were the ones used to bring my car to the pickup point. I looked over his shoulder and saw my keys hanging on a pegboard behind him. I had put an attachment which was quite distinctive on the ring, and the keys hanging had it. We argued and, finally, with an “indulge the customer look” on his face, the supervisor, for that was the level we had reached by then, marched me out to my car. I inserted my key in the ignition and started the car. Next, and to the supervisor’s chagrin, I inserted the other set and started the car again.
I have no way to calculate the odds that two nearly identical cars would be at the same location on the same day and both keyed alike. It boggles the mind, yet sometime later, when I told this story at a meeting, one of the participants reported that the same thing had happened to her. So, the odds must not be as great as one might think.
They say that “truth is stranger than fiction.” Perhaps, but strange or not, truth certainly does suggest some really strange fiction. Read on.