Strange but True

I was selling some furniture on Craig's List that I'd bought from the people who sold my house. A really nice couple about my age without kids came to pick it up- Erica & Dave. We chatted for a while and she counted out the money and handed it over. We loaded up the furniture into Dave's pick up (he did most of the work). They drove off to their little house in SE Portland.

Later on that evening, I noticed that they had overpaid me by $20. I was on the fence about what to do- keep it, or let them know? I decided to text Erica and tell her. She said they would try to pick it up sometime when they were in the neighborhood. I figured if they were going to pick it up, they probably needed the money. I probably would have forgotten about it.

I hadn't heard back for a few days and figured they forgot about it- oh well, $20 is not that much money.

Yesterday I was doing the terrible errands that go along with buying a house- Lowe's, Target, and then Ikea. I'd just arrived at Ikea when someone said, "Sara!" It was Erica and Dave. How strange! I passed over the only twenty dollar bill I had in my wallet. And we chatted for a while. They'd just been at Home Depot, Target and Ikea. We were on the same path.

How odd is it to run into someone like that in a city of 2.3 million? It felt like it was meant to be that I returned the money. And they were such a nice couple, I almost wanted to ask them to be friends.