“The police probably thought she was nuts, and she probably thought she was a little nuts, and after 20 years I just want to let her know she’s not,” he said. “It really happened.”

Egged on by his friends, who pointed out that in a tightknit city like Winnipeg, most people are connected by only two or three degrees of separation, he turned to social media for help. “Have you ever heard the other side of the story?” he asked on Facebook and Twitter last month. “Do you know this person? Help me find her!” The posts were shared hundreds of times, but so far Freedman hasn’t gotten any leads, even after being featured by the CBC this week.

He has, however, been learning that he’s not the only one to inadvertently take a stranger’s car for a joyride.

“Since I’ve posted this, I’ve had probably 30 people send me messages personally to say they had something similar to this happen,” Freedman said. “On Reddit, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of people that have gone through the same thing.”

One possible explanation that he’s heard is that auto manufacturers at the time tended to use a standard key, and didn’t change it much between vehicles. Since both of the cars involved in the mix-up were probably at least eight years old, the keys could also have been worn down, he said.