Case in point: Yesterday morning she noticed that our double stroller/bike trailer was missing off our front porch (Already she's way ahead of me; I wouldn't have noticed that until the next time I went to use it). The situation was similar to what happened to our friends about a month earlier. Luckily, a neighbourhood character (I'll call him "Freddy") located the stolen stroller and returned it to the family. He was awarded $20 for his efforts.
Our missing stroller was bugging Tricia all day yesterday. She filed a police report, and posted a blog entry. After dinner, we were outside with the kids, and she was pacing around. She told me she wanted to go see Freddy. I must admit, the idea seemed irrational to me. I asked her "What do you hope to accomplish?" Her answer, "I don't know." Having witnessed the genius of her intuition in the past, I agreed that she should pay Freddy a visit. She walked down our block, and disappeared around the corner.
Fifteen minutes later, I saw her coming back down the street, this time pushing a double-stroller and accompanied by Freddy. I was dumbfounded. Freddy explained how he found the stroller abandoned in the bushes in a nearby playground. He's been known to find bikes and take them to the police station (so he tells us), so he took the stroller to his house. We gave him his $20 finder's fee, and listened to a few more of his heroic tales about taking bikes to the police station, and how the guy that stole the last stroller just finished a 2-week stint in jail.
After he left, Tricia said, "I don't buy it one bit." I, too, was slightly skeptical, but hearing Tricia's side of the story really tipped the scales for me.
She walked to Freddy's house, and into his backyard. He refurbishes and sells used bikes, so the gate to his backyard is more like the storefront to a junkyard. And there was our stroller, sitting in the middle of his yard. Tricia said, "That's my stroller!" I'm not sure what happened then, but it seems to me that Freddy told about how he found our stroller, and our friend's stroller, and how they gave him $20 for finding it. Tricia didn't have any money with her, so Freddy accompanied her for the walk back to our house. As they left Freddy's house, he yelled across the street to a woman, "Sorry, the stroller's already gone." Was he about to SELL our stroller? Wait a minute. Is this the guy who finds bikes and takes them to the police station? And he's preparing to turn over our stroller less than 12 hours after it was noticed missing?!?
Very fishy. Anyway, that's how Tricia managed to locate our stroller.
I could chalk it up to luck... simply being in the right place at the right time. Such coincidences are bound to happen from time to time. Perhaps a better explanation is that Tricia, without knowing it, integrated a collection of subtle leads to infer that the best place to start looking was at Freddy's. She was right, and I am in awe of her astounding intuitive intelligence.
As an epilogue, let me make it perfectly clear that I do NOT equate intuition with ESP, clairvoyance, divine intervention, or any other paranormal phenomena. The vast majority of what goes on inside our brains is below our conscious awareness. Information processing happens on many levels, and our consciousness is really only one layer on top of all that. Everyone has intuition, but some seem to be better than others. Moreover, some are more willing to listen to their intuition.
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