or The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way
Like the sweet little grey and white cat (less than 6 months old?) sitting on the grass in front of the No Frills at 222 Lansdowne. A terribly busy street with fast, unforgiving cars. A rather unconcerned cat, who came over to me when I offered some Friskies cat food - I was on my way to feed a small feral colony up the street.
I was just coming back from a last minute pizza meeting with Peter Newell, a vice president of the Toronto Humane Society, whose board I recently joined. Otherwise, I would not have been at that spot to notice him. Serendipity.
I decided to carry him home the 2 blocks across several lanes of traffic (College/Dundas/Lansdowne), hoping I would not be scratched too badly. Luckily the little guy was well behaved.
When I got home, I kept him safe in our entrance hall to the basement apartment while I called 24 PetWatch about the yellow microchip tage on his collar. I have REALLY got to say good things about this company!
Within 3-4 minutes, I was connected to the cat's owners who live one street east of me (St. Clarens) and within another 5 minutes, the cat was in the arms of his caretaker. Wow !!!
Somewhat distressingly, I learned that this was their second cat (named Pretty Boy), because the first one had been killed by traffic. (WTF ?) I gave the tattooed guy, who seemed nice, some advice about how to streetproof a cat (take them securely in your arms when traffic is noisy and heavy and repeatedly say 'no'... believe it or not, cats learn). I forgot to tell him that having a second companion cat often keeps cats anchored to your backyard.
I wondered whether I should call Toronto Animal Services to report the found cat, since he also had a City of Toronto licence tag to compare if the chance of return was as great. What prevents me from doing so and reporting the tag number is fear that the city will over-react and send a bylaw officer to fine or confiscate the pet.
Serendipity. A wonderful thing.
Kinda makes life worth living when these kinds of things happen.....
