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underpants

(197,179 posts)
Mon Oct 6, 2025, 04:17 PM Oct 2025

How weird is this? I have no idea what the odds of this happening are

Two weeks ago on a Tuesday, I was instructed to go buy an $80 Publix gift card for someone at work. I pay with my company card. The lights blinked off while I was there. At the Customer Service desk they said the WiFi was blinking out still. We tried twice but the charge never went through. For some reason 🤪 I didn’t get a receipt of any paper work. They said they’d put it back on the display.

Three days later I see two $80 on my card statement. Great how am I going to reconcile that?
I go back to the same store. They file some report in their system and I get receipts.

While I was there I went ahead and bought an $80 card as instructed. I never grab the one in the front.

Today I call their customer service in Florida. Very helpful. They forward me to accounting. As we are going through the transactions there was one at 11:14 AM and 11:16 AM. I’ve got the receipts now for those. Oh and there was another charge at 11:23. Great that’s not showing up on my statement and I don’t have a card to show for any of this. Aaaaand the gift HAS $80 on it

I pull out the receipt for the card I ended up getting and say “oh that 3 days later when I went back to the store”. It was at 11:23.

It was the same exact card. Three days later. Again, randomly selected from all the gift cards on the display.

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How weird is this? I have no idea what the odds of this happening are (Original Post) underpants Oct 2025 OP
"Twilight Zone" Fla Dem Oct 2025 #1
The probability of that event (picking the same card) is very low dedl67 Oct 2025 #2
Cool. Thanks. 😊 underpants Oct 2025 #3
Same store IbogaProject Oct 2025 #4

dedl67

(244 posts)
2. The probability of that event (picking the same card) is very low
Mon Oct 6, 2025, 04:41 PM
Oct 2025

However, over the course of one's lifetime, the probability of at least a few extremely unlikely coincidences occurring is high. A great book with examples is "Lady Luck: The Theory of Probability" by Warren Weaver.

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