DSM: The Smallest City

I joined a church recently. Nothing fancy but I didn't know which one to choose. Like any good millennial I Googled "Lutheran churches near me" and went the following Sunday to the closest one. It worked out well. I happened to sit by the pastor's wife and she went to Luther. One of her best friends in college was my high school calculus teacher. The world already felt small. A quick glance around the church I realized I recognized another Luther grad that I had met at a random bar in Des Moines almost a month ago. Saw another Luther family in the church parking lot who's daughter ran track with me in college. Of all the churches, Lutheran or otherwise, I had managed to pick one where I had small string of connections. It was cute. It was fun. I liked finding Luther people outside the Twin Cities, since it seemed like most of them went there after graduation.

Like any good Lutheran in a small church, a woman came up to me at the end of the service last week and said, "You must be new here because I've never seen you before." A part of me giggled because the moment was "so Lutheran" but I continued on because everyone I had met at the church was nice so far. I explained that I was relatively new to Des Moines and had been looking around for a church when I came across this one. I had been meaning to start coming to church for awhile but a series of plumbing issues on Sundays that lasted a month and half had prevented me up to that point. She asked if I was from the neighborhood because she lived nearby years ago. I said I did live quite close. She told me when she lived nearby she had had plumbing trouble as well. She proceeded to tell me the street name. I said I lived on that same street. She asked me the number so I told her. March 19, 2017, will go down as the strangest day in the history of my life because at church I met one of the previous owners of my house. She had lived in that very house in the late 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. I threw out an invitation to have her over and see the place now. She was delighted. The conversation came naturally and neither one of knew when it started that we would have so much in common.

What are the odds a woman approaches me and asked where I live? And then proceeds to tell me she used to live there? I can't even fathom how that is possible. The Des Moines metro population is 622,899. It does not seem possible for our paths to cross let alone discover we share an address in history.