Who knows what it's

The candlelight danced across his sharp features as he leaned back in his creaking chair, fingers steepled. So, the winds of fate have blown you to my doorstep, he mused, voice like velvet over steel. Tell me, wanderer—are you here to spin a tale, or unravel one? His eyes glinted, daring you to step closer. Choose wisely. Not all stories have happy endings.

Now I’m going to show you how to use the expression “come across.” To “come across” something is to encounter it , to find it, to see it—without looking for it. It’s either unexpected or it’s by chance . When I go to Walmart, I’m not a very disciplined shopper . I just kind of wander around . I get the stuff I go in for, but I also walk up and down aisles for a few minutes. And when I was doing that—I needed to get mosquito repellent —I was in the general aisle of personal care , and I came across a washcloth made from activated charcoal. I wasn’t looking for it. I didn’t even know it existed. But I saw it, I found it, unexpectedly, and without trying. So we say, I came across an activated charcoal washcloth in Walmart. JR was flipping through some channels on TV last month and came across a baseball game being played and televised. And he asked me, what is this? Because our American and Canadian baseball league had not yet started. It was something called the “World Baseball Classic,” which is like a World Cup but for baseball. JR wasn’t looking for this, but he did find it. I moved recently, I told you that. I moved from Chicago to Mexico, and I came here with five suitcases . And back in Chicago I had a pretty big apartment. And so I had the important job of going through all my stuff and filtering out what I wanted to take, what I wanted to put in storage , and what I wanted to get rid of . And during that process, I came across a lot of old stuff that I really am glad that I kept, but that I had forgotten about . So I was cleaning out my closets and found boxes, I opened the boxes, and inside were things that brought back good memories . Now remember, I wasn’t looking for those things. I was just trying to see what boxes to put in storage and what not to. But I did find them, and they brought back good memories. You can use “come across” with a person too. Here are two things that are funny that have happened to me. I was walking in the center of New York