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A number of contrasting uses of contingency are discussed, with an emphasis on the relation of contingency with indeterminism and determinism. We find associations with indeterminism problematic. Another frequent use of the concept of contingency is discussed, what we call epistemic contingency. It is associated with spatiotemporal conjunctures and is intricately connected with the concept of boundary conditions (how humans perceive the world) and initial conditions. The latter are the often ignored half of the (laws and initial conditions) causal story and account for the spatiotemporal facts about the universe. We explain a view that what humans perceive as contingent stems from the irregular initial conditions of the universe. The story of how is crucial to any meaningful understanding of the world and is, contrary to common views, both increasingly tractable and correctly told as a just-so story.