Today is not a depressing-blog-entry-about-my-existential-anxiety day! Things are good. There is a cat napping on my floor and my apartment no longer has fleas and I have plans for later tonight that apparently involve free beer. So instead, today we are going to talk about the strangest thing that has happened to me since I spent my twentieth birthday on a roof with a nautilus*.

A month or so ago, I adopted a dog from the Urban Pet Project. Though she was a wonderful little fluffy white thing, it quickly became apparent that a) my roommate’s cat was miserable with the dog around and b) the dog was too prey-sensitive for my comfort level given the living situation. She was a great animal, but it was a poor fit, and so with heavy heart I returned her to the rescue.

The rescue posts pictures of every adopted animal and their new owner on their Facebook page. So you can imagine how pleased I was when, a week later, the little fluffy white dog showed up with a new owner–a skinny hipster dude with some tattoo sleeves.

I sent the photo of skinny hipster dude and the dog to a few of my friends, and joked that I would track him down at the Piedmont Dog Park and befriend him.

So, on Monday I went to go get my car emissions inspected in the nearby shopping center. After the ten minutes of awkward smalltalk and confirmation that my car isn’t a fiery deathtrap, I headed back to my apartment. While driving down the path to the back of the complex where I live, I noticed a man with his dog, walking along the sidewalk. This isn’t unusual–lots of folks in my complex have dogs.

I noticed the dog was a little fluffy white one, and was pleased.

Then I noticed the dog owner had some familiar arm tattoos, at which point I nearly drove my car into the curb. It turns out that skinny hipster dude and my former dog apparently live in my complex.

This left me with a conundrum. On the one hand, I wanted to go say hi–that’s, like, bad-romantic-comedy level coincidence, right? Surely this is a sign in an uncaring universe! On the other hand, there is literally no non-creepy way to bring up, “I used to own your dog, and then I saw your photo on the internet, and now I’m saying hi while you’re walking your dog on your lunchbreak. Let’s be friends!” Particularly when you’re driving past in your car.

Perhaps it will simply turn out that this was all some sort of hallucination brought on by the poorly-ventilated emissions shed. But if so? Weirdest hallucination ever.

* An incident which didn’t even make the roundup post for SXSW, apparently. God, that was a weird weekend.