I've never seen anything like this in my life!

Have you ever taken a moment to consider the phrase, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life?” Something about the phrase doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not saying those that have said it are wrong or lying. I just think the phrase itself doesn’t really have the impact the person saying it probably thinks it has.

In the scope of life, most people haven’t seen much of anything. Life is short and we spend a lot of time working, sleeping, or just doing mundane things. But even with most of life being just routine events, all you have to do is see a tennis ball hit a tree then bounce two times off of the sidewalk, or see a Tesla driver unwittingly try to fill their tank with gas, to have enough merit to say, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life?” because it would be true.

I’m willing to bet that most events are something we’ve never seen before. If you saw three random cars parked in front of a convenience store, in the precise order of red, white, and blue on Independence Day well that would be a crazy coincidence especially considering the holiday. It doesn’t make it any more special if it’s the very first time you’ve seen it. HOWEVER, I would argue that if it happened three years in a row at random locations it would pretty incredible. Maybe then saying, “I’ve seen this exact thing three times in my life.” would have the appropriate awe attached to it.

I know this entire article is petty. But that’s what I do. It’s probably a side effect of working on textbooks for the last two decades. I only wrote it because someone was talking about the ill effects of the well-thought-out Trump tariffs by saying, “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.” My initial thought was that with our short lives mostly everything is the first time. Here are some things off the top of my head that happened to me in recent times that I’ve never seen before in my life. I’m sure you probably don’t care but humor me since you’ve read this far.

1. A few days ago, at Goodwill I happened to see a DVD set for the complete seventh season of Bob’s Burgers. BUT, inside the case was the first disc of Season 1 the first two discs of Season 7. WEIRD! And I promise you, “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

2. Last week, while in line at Chipotle to get dinner, one of the workers yelled out that they were out of chicken. A few people left the line, but I stayed since I’m vegetarian (now). When it was my turn to order I noticed, they were also out of the fajita vegetable mix, but they hadn’t mentioned such a fact. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

3. Today while driving with my wife an ambulance sped past us. Eventually we got to the scene of the accident, but we couldn’t see anything because one of those huge, long, fire engines was parked horizontally across the entire road blocking the entire street and view as well. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

So, yes, the way the economy is reacting to the tariffs, America deporting people to El Salvador without due process, and the final episode of one of my favorite TV shows MASH are all things I’ve never seen in my life, but you won’t hear me ever saying it.

And with that I end my rant. Good night.