(Submitted by reader Steve Gray)

A woman friend and I were visiting Naples, Italy. She was on the faculty at UCLA and I live in Santa Monica. She wanted to visit the Naples La Scala Opera house and hear an opera. I wasn’t really interested so we agreed to attend only the first act. We left at intermission and began our walk down the street.

Suddenly a female voice yelled, “Sylvia!” It was someone she knew from UCLA. (Remember, this is halfway around the world and the meeting was completely coincidental.)

The woman who called out was with her husband and they were walking toward the opera house. They were hoping to catch the second act of the opera. (Why they were going to only the second act, I don’t know.) We gave them our ticket stubs and went on our way, with everyone’s plans lining up as hoped.

[EDITOR: I sometimes like to do the above-mentioned trick with movies. Maybe that’s the reason I’m the only person I know who thought Mulholland Drive made perfect sense.]