In a recent post to Reddit, a user by the name of u/pollutedmind22 shared a pretty remarkable story about a chance meeting that has users on the platform pretty riled up. Partly because it might just be too romantic to be true. 

“When i was 9, my elementary school had a penpal program, which would allow us to write letters to other 9-year-olds across the whole country. i was young and curious at the time, so i decided to send them a letter,” explained Reddit user u/pollutedmind22.

The user went onto further explained that his letter reached a girl who lived across the country. “Jane” as the user calls his panpal for privacy’s sake, lived near New Orleans while the Reddit user lived in Denver at the time. The two wrote to each other and got a long well enough that their parents decided to encourage their communications because they knew it would improve their writing. According to the Reddit user, the two talked about everything from their crushes to their studies and families. “We were as close as two people could be without meeting, explained. Things went along so well that the two wrote once a week. “I remembered how excited i would be waiting for the letter, and putting off everything to immediately reply to her. We both grew up together, and we confided all our problems with each other.” explained the user. 

According to the Reddit user in 2014, after around 10 years of writing manual letters, they decided to move to email, as it was faster to type and messages could be sent instantly.

Then, earlier this year the Reddit user began working in a restaurant as a side job while completing their studies. It so happens that when he started his work, he began working alongside a woman named Jane. ” I found it funny, and a hilarious coincidence, and thus i emailed Jane telling her so,” explained the user. “It was then she sent back an email telling me that she was the Jane in question. Apparently, she had just moved to Denver and hadn’t had time to tell me, and just happened to work at the same shop as I did. what are the odds!”

The Reddit user explained that they have been working together for around 8 months and became so close in real life that they started dating 2 months ago.

During the AMA portion of the Reddit poster, one user asked “What was the spirit and essence of these letters and emails that kept the pen friendship going for so long?”

In response, the original Reddit user explained. “We were both introverts, and thus writing was a way both of us could freely express ourselves. I was motivated to keep writing as her personality was just great, she was funny and confident, and we both could share our personal problems, and just talk about life. Honestly, the 15 years and nearly 1000 letters and emails passed so quickly, and i’m just so glad i participated in that program in the first place.” 

Q: What was your first impression of her in that coffee store when you still didn’t know that it was infact your penpal you were looking at. –sieberde

A: “honestly, i didn’t pay much attention and she was busy calling someone, my first actual confrontation the next day was awkward to say the least. we just stood and looked at each other for what must have been 5 minutes.”

Q: You say she told you it was in fact her in an E-Mail. Did she know that it was you from the mail you wrote or did she get the hint sooner?-sieberde

A: “After reading my email, she quickly sent one back asking if it was <insert restaurant name>, as she realised that her new co worker shared the same name as i. after around 2 emails later, we realised that we actually met each other in person.”

Q: Hows the decade been?

A: it’s been full of ups and downs, but we have always wrote to each other and consoled each other when stuff went wrong. i basically lived my conscious life with her, and we shared everything with each other. so the decade has been like a normal decade, but with a close friend that always stuck to me.

Of course, as is typical for Reddit boards, internet sleuths have pressed the user to prove the validity of this story. Particularly considering how cute it is and some various valuable points.

As one user pointed out “you expect people to believe that you and Jane are 24-year-old friends who are as close as you could be with someone you hadn’t met – and you never connected on social media? Never shared a photo?”

As another user pointed out, it seems odd that the Redditer’s friend would only share that she had moved to his hometown after the fact. Especially because they seemed to have grown so close in recent years 

“So a girl you’ve been writing letters to for a decade and a half moved to the same city as you and failed to tell you until she already got a job?” JayCroghan pointed out. “Alright, buddy. Not only applied for a got a job but management had time to let employees know.”

TBT on what the real story is here but we’ll be keeping you posted.

Forged from a new bout of road rage, mi gente, is “Kidz Bop Karen” a woman whose foul-mouthed attack on a driver she accused of cutting her off on the road has gone viral. Kidz Bop Karen, so named after she claimed that her children could not hear her words of vitriol during her heated confrontation because they were listening to Kidz Bop, has been added to the Camera Meltdown Canon of which  “Permit Patty” and “Barbecue Betty” are members. 

Kidz Bop Karen went viral after a woman named Chelsea Klein captured her rant and shared it on Friday.

According to NBC News, Klein had in a Lyft and looking at her phone while driving down New York City’s West Side Highway when the incident occurred. She was unaware as to whether or not her drive had cut off the unidentified woman known to the internet as Kidz Bop Karen. However, she did notice the woman giving her driver and herself the bird. This was when Klein decided to give the woman a thumbs up. When the two cars finally came to a stop at a light, Kidz Bop Karen stormed over to Klein’s Lyft vehicle and hit the passenger side woman. Klein says, the altercation made her feel uncomfortable and unsure for her safety, so she began to record.

“I honestly started filming because I was scared she was going to jump in the car,” Klein told NBC News. “The look in her eyes was scary and road rage is kind of scary. I was scared for sure.”

In Klein’s video of the heated exchange, Kidz Bop Karen can be seen leaning into the Lyft driver’s front passenger window and yelling at Klein.

In the video, the Lyft driver seems to calm the situation by conceding that it was his fault. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. It’s my fault.” Still, Kidz Bop Karen continued to rage, sticking her tongue out at Klein and staring back at her wide-eyed.

“She thinks it’s cute that her driver almost hit my kids, and she thinks she needs to take a video of it instead of apologizing,” Kidz Bop Karen sparks sarcastically in the video.

Klein can be heard asking the Kidz Bop Karen if standing in the middle of the road helps the situation.

“You being a b—- is going to help?” Klein snapped back before yelling “I don’t know? Calm down! Calm down!” 

As the driver once again makes an attempt to defuse the situation by apologizing, Kidz Bop Karen continues her rampage. 

“It is your fault,” she tells the driver before whirling around and facing Klein. “And you know, that didn’t upset me, but the b—- a– h– that told me to calm down? What I’d like you to do is apologize instead of being a b—-.”

Klein attempts to apologize before reminding the woman that her children could  hear her calling her a “b—- a– h–.”  Klein told NBC that from her seat she make out an adult and older child in the woman’s card. Kleins says the child looked to be crying. 

In response, Kidz Bop Karen barks back with the ultimate line that has garnered her fame.

“My kids can’t hear me calling you a b—- … they can’t hear me because they’re listening to ‘Kidz Bop.'”

Before the video ends, and Klein and her driver drove off, Kidz Bop Karen told Klein that her “attitude sucks d—.”

Soon after capturing the moment, Klein says she shared the altercation with the site Barstool Sports, and it didn’t take long for the video to go viral. As of now, the original video has 16 million views on Twitter. While Kidz Bop Karen has remained unidentified, she did speak to TMZ and says that she’s bothered by being labeled a Republican because of the video. According to TMZ, Kidz Bop Karen has said that she feels her “her behavior is fair game for trolls because she acted like this in public.” She apparently has also said that she does not hold any animosity towards Klein  who filmed her rant and would like to apologize.

Speaking to NBC, a Lyft spokesperson released a statement in response to the incident saying: “The safety of our community is fundamental to Lyft. We have reached out to the rider and driver involved in this incident and stand ready to support any investigation.”

For those interested, Kidz Bop Karen told TMZ that the Kidz Bops tune that her kids were listening to was “Old Town Road.”