Priit was over one Saturday night  

We decided to go buy a metal tape

Over at Seaview Square Mall

At the Record World record store ‑‑

I had never bought a metal tape before  

While we were in the store

I overheard a middle‑aged woman

Asking one of the employees

If they had a certain Pink Floyd member's record

Which I happened to know they did not have, it being rare,

And whose presence I could predict in another store  

What intrigued me was hearing this older woman

Talking about Pink Floyd  

I went over to her

And politely explained about the record  

She was appreciative of my help,

Explaining that she was

Looking for the record for her son           

              * * *  

Monday at work at Bell Labs in Piscataway,

A 45 minute drive from where I was living,

I was sitting at a terminal in a hallway,

Not a usual thing for me to do,

When a woman walked by

Who from the brief side and back view I got

Reminded me of the woman in the record store  

The more I thought about it

The more I thought that the resemblance was unusual  

In fact, I was so intrigued by the resemblance

That I wanted to get another look at her

Just to assure myself that it wasn't the same woman  

Later that day I did see the woman again

But instead of being assured that there was just a resemblance

I was now almost convinced that it was the woman from the store  

I politely asked her if she was at Record World over the weekend

And she said that she was ‑‑

Yes, it was the same woman,

And she remembered me  

Her name was Shirley,

This was her first day at Piscataway,

She was a temporary secretary and only there for that week,

And she lived as far away from there as I did  

We agreed that this was rather cosmic

And became good friends that week and on other occasions there,

And later in Holmdel when we bumped into each other again          

Our meeting at Holmdel was not that coincidental

Since we had both asked to work closer to home

And Holmdel was the logical place within Bell Labs  

But come to think of it,

That day we were reunited in the Holmdel Labs

Some interesting things happened  

Among the more noteworthy:  

At dinner that evening with my parents at the Sunset Cabin

We changed tables after we had been seated because of our waiter

And the waitress at our new table was named Shirley  

When we got home, the pitcher for the Yankees was Bob Shirley