Perfect Fit

“We met and knew right away we were a perfect fit!”

“His business model was a perfect fit for our investment mix.”

“Your hand-me-down skirt is a perfect fit!”

Perfect fit: what a beautiful concept. Every now and then you see one coming. You don your matchmaker hat because you know two compatible single friends. Or you snip the legs off some pantyhose because the top will stretch seamlessly under your Sally O’Malley costume.

Best of all are the perfect fits you don’t see coming, the ones that fall from heaven in a sparkly shaft of angel dust: a title for the novel you’ve been writing for years, a baffling internet algorithm, or a scrumptiously-ok dinner made from the dregs of your pantry. It’s like God is saying “I choose you.” But you have to be paying attention to be chosen. That’s the rule. Pay attention!

Fortunately, you don’t have to know you’re paying attention. Synchronicity can ambush you even if you’re half-asleep during a marathon game of Monopoly Junior.

Here’s proof. I was working on a clownfish puzzle recently. It was an impulse puzzle, pulled from the toy shelf when a thunderstorm foiled a family trip to the pool. The rug where my kids and I sat proved to be a bad surface for the little cardboard pieces. They kept pulling apart on the soft fibers. “Grab a book to put under the puzzle,” I said to my son. I didn’t want to upset the Rube Goldberg of temporarily mollified children by relocating to a table. “Here,” he said, handing me a copy of Sammy the Seal.

It might as well have been Solomon’s Seal. Who could’ve predicted the spectacular synergy between the partially-completed puzzle and the book’s back cover? The clownfish’s tail fit over the pet lady’s head like a custom glove-bucket. My kids and I sat, transfixed. “It’s an old-timey scuba helmet with no window!” my daughter exclaimed. “Yeah, or a astronaut’s uniform!” added my son. Seizing a teachable moment, I explained the world of dickeys. “They’re decoy turtlenecks, children,“ I began. “Only in this case, there’s no head-hole.” My son chimed in, “We could use a hole punch for the eyes.” “That’s right, honey,” I said, “that’s right.”

We couldn’t bring ourselves to complete the clownfish puzzle. Not with Sammy ogling the tube sock dickey lady. It was the first thing we showed to my husband when he came home that evening. “Cool,” he said, trying. It was tough to explain what a perfect fit the picture had been at 3:30, when thunder rattled the living room.

Later that night, I caught up on some architecture work. My mouse wasn’t handy, so I typed “fillet” (pron. “fill-it”), a CAD command I use often to connect line segments. Except my fingers were misaligned on the home row, so “fukket” appeared on the screen instead. For a moment I considered running upstairs to wake the kids. Lightening had struck twice in one day! But then I previewed my explanation and realized it would have to wait another twenty years.