This afternoon I took a break from cleaning to sit outside with a book and toss the ball for Gimpy and Levi. We were out there no longer than fifteen minutes, so, subtracting the minutes I spent throwing the ball, my reading time was limited. I'm currently reading Darkness, My Old Friend, an enjoyable mystery by Lisa Unger. At some point in that brief time outside I read the following passage about a phone call from a former police officer (Jones) to an officer still on the force (Chuck):
. . . "In the meantime can I give you her tag number?" he said. This was the real reason he'd called Chuck. There was new license-plate-recognition software. Using security and CCTV cameras that were all over the place, cops could track plates now. It was something that was happening very quietly, under the radar of the media and civil-rights groups. As a civilian, Jones didn't have accesss to that anymore, and the technology was so new that he didn't have a private contact. "Maybe you'll get a hit on her vehicle somewhere?"I hadn't heard about that technology before. Even after I read about it, it wouldn't have been of particular interest outside the context of the book, had it not been for what happened next.
I brought the dogs back into the house, gave them a treat, washed my hands, and sat down at the computer for a quick Facebook check. Instead, realizing I hadn't yet read the local news this morning, I clicked on the link for The Advocate, Baton Rouge's newspaper. The lead story, right above an article about the Super Bowl, was titled "Extra 'eyes' aid deputies." It reported on the same type of surveillance technology I'd read about less than twenty minutes earlier in a book published in 2011.
What a coinkydink.
Now that I've read the newspaper article, I do find the technology and the controversy surrounding its use interesting. If it pops up on my radar again, I'll pay attention, though I can't imagine that this is anything I'd ever need to know about.
So. How do you feel when this type of coincidence occurs in your life? Do you immediately write it off as the random chance it probably is? Or--for at least an instant--does the hair on the back of your neck stand up and give you a little woo-woo moment?
I always find coincidences very interesting, not sure what if anything they mean and sometimes they can be kind of eerie. I saw that you were reading a book by Lisa Unger, one of my very favorite authors. My favorite book of hers, the first I ever read, was Beautiful Lies. I follow her on Goodreads and she very recently accepted my Friend Request so to me it was a coincidence to see her name in your post and that is what drew me to read your post. Very interesting and thanks for sharing! :-)
ReplyDelete