coincidence is how you got a call from that number.
It would be quite complicated to work out the odds of you recieving that call at that time but it'll be lower than you'd imagine. Certainly within the territory of, say, winning Euromillions, but no-one claims there is a paranormal explanation for that.

I'm sure there are many, many occasions in that period where you woke up from a vivid dream involving your mum but hadn't recieved any phone call, too.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:39, 1 reply, 15 years ago)

well of course! unfortunately.
i don't believe there is a paranormal explanation, but i'd like to hear a practical one that would make me understand it.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 16:48, Reply)

This was kind of the point of my short rant above.
We (as a species) are intelligent enough to know we should search for an explanation but sometimes we aren't quite rational enough to accept that explanation when we find it, because the explanation isn't "enough" for us.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:01, Reply)

but this doesn't explain how
someone could have called me.

it would mean someone at the school had to be in there at 5am and to stumble across my mobile number out of the blue and call it. i mean, seriously. HOW?!

it's really not that i imagined it as dream-aftermath, although that is the natural assumption. i showed my flatmate the missed call just to prove this to myself!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:09, Reply)

wrong number?
it's possible. Don't underestimate the power of coincidence.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:15, Reply)

hmmmm
i just don't know. unless someone got locked in the school office overnight and was slowly dialling their way through every 11 digit combination, it is a mahoosive coincidence!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:17, Reply)

you are totally sure it was the school's number?

( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:21, Reply)

yeah
it wasn't in my phonebook, although i did recognise it. so i returned the call by pressing the "call" button on my phone. and the school answered.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:44, Reply)

This is the point.
It's only a massive coincidence because you aren't comfortable with it. Things of that level of statistical likelihood happen all the time and we ignore them because they don't phase us.

Someone being in a school at 5am isn't unlikely. Teachers get drunk, stay out half the night, go into their work at random times just like the rest of us. Perhaps they are pissed and drunkenly decide to phone an ex and get the number wrong. Coincidentally they dial your number. I mean, you don't think "blimey, that's immpossibly unlikely" every time you get a wrong number, yet the odds of that alone are pretty unlikely.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:34, Reply)

i suppose
but it doesn't satisfy my burning need to put this to bed!

besides, my mother's colleagues were on average 50, not sexy young single teachers!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Mon 25 Oct 2010, 17:44, Reply)