Lunch Break/ing News - It IS a Small World

So I learned this morning that one of my coworkers went to a high school in Raleigh, North Carolina with my best friend. They graduated a year apart; he in 1997 and she in 1998; they both worked in the high school's television studio, and now they live in New York without having ever known that they both ended up here (well, she just moved to Jersey with her fiance after graduating from Juilliard, but close enough). This within two months of learning that I am working for the same company in New York City with someone who is related to me by marriage.

It reminded me of a time that Terrence and I - in typical Terrence-and-I fashion - confused LGA and JFK (since it's easy to fail to differentiate between "LGA" and "JFK" and those too airports are soooo close to each other - especially when using an MTA-approved mode of transportation). After we finally realized that he wasn't at La Guardia (so he should stop looking for the M-60 bus and take the AirTrain to the Manhattan-bound A), he ended up running into someone he hadn't seen since his high school graduation in Atlanta while passing through Brooklyn.

And recently another thought-provoking scenario came up while Terrence and I were chatting on the phone as he was leaving the NBA Summer League in Vegas. He and his best friend were heading out on separate flights to his best friend's city, where they'll continue with off-season work-outs, when Terrence saw a little kid wearing his best friend's jersey and mentioned to me, "This kid is wearing [his] entire NBA uniform in the airport and doesn't even realize that [he's] in the next terminal. Kind of weird, right?"

All of this had me wondering how many times in New York City I might be a city-block or a subway-car away from someone that I admire, haven't seen in years or perhaps knew in high school. It is a small world after all.