Thursday January 22, 2026 Serendipity

Serendipity: A Silver Lining.

   How many instances of serendipity can we thus define in a single hour?

 

   I have to answer nature’s call before sunrise, the house is dark. I arise from bed, swing my feet to the floor then as I try to quietly move between the bed and the wall, I step painfully on the plug-in end of the cord on my electric blanket that was laying on the floor -- but I don’t trip into the leg of the steel bed frame like I have before. Serendipity

 

   I open the kitchen door to the basement and the cat isn’t there to meow insistent to go outside. The dog isn’t there to thump her tail loudly against the landing when she sees me. Serendipity.

 

   I descend the basement steps without incident, recalling the afternoon during the winter when I came through the door from the outdoors in my winter gear, big boots, heavy coat and wool hat, carrying a snow shovel for some reason--then slipped and wildly careened down the whole flight of eight wooden steps all the way to the bottom, the shovel flailing in one hand and me grasping for anything solid with my other. I swore vehemently. My wife Jackie laughed uproariously. But nothing was broken. Serendipity.

 

   The nightlite shown feebly beyond the porcelain facility I was standing when the huge lurking shadow of an arachnid with its spooky moving legs appeared upon the wall over the toilet tank to threaten my serenity. I wasn’t Jackie. Serendipity.

 

   Finishing, I turned toward the bathroom sink to wash my hands--and discovered I had squirted hand lotion into my palm instead of the anti-bacterial soap I sought. Jackie must have cleaned the sink while I was at work and moved things around. I didn’t have to do it. Serendipity.

 

   Hemorhoidal cream would not taste as pleasant as toothpaste nor be as easy to rinse out of your toothbrush should one pick up the wrong tube in the dark. This was avoided. Serendipity

 

    Catching a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror, my hair in disarray, the pronounced pinkish bags below my eyes and deepening wrinkles embossed in my ascending forehead decidedly foretell I’m getting older by the day. I laugh at my appearance; I’m still an alright guy. Serendipity.

 

   Daylight is sneaking through the walk-out basement’s big windows on the east wall. I can see more of our stuff that has somehow deposited itself along the aisles there over the winter and is destined for a new home on a someday cleanup project that keeps getting conveniently set aside. It isn’t today--conveniently. Serendipity.

 

  I mosey back to bed, going back up the steps grasping the handrail I put up after my fall down them those few short years ago. I had quietly accomplished what I had set out to do and hadn’t disturbed Jackie from her slumber, she being just a wall's thickness away where every noise is amplified--and every thump of the dog’s tail or her incessant circling to finally lay down on the rug is heard by persons trying to sleep peacefully there...

 

  “I’ll just peek out to see if both the dog and cat are outside the door... I’ll ease the door open just a tad...”

 

  WHOOSH! The cat streaked in past my feet, right behind her is the big ol’ dog who pushes the door wide open and it whacks me in the head.

 

  DOWN the steps they rocket toward their indoor food dishes, the dog in all her clumsy ‘grace,’ big tail whipping, toenails clicking against the steps. The cat is yowling to be fed. The dog is salivating, her feet dancing. She’s twirling herself around in a delirious frenzy.

 

   Jackie is awake now. I hear her come out of the bedroom, her footsteps cross the creaking floor. 

She’s catching up her robe. I imagine her putting it around her shoulders, coming into the kirchen, glancing at the digital clock on the stove... 

 

   “Sorry about all this, dear, “ I say plaintively as she steps into the stairwell and gesture toward the two distraught hungry animals waiting impatiently at the bottom of the steps.

 

   “Oh, I’ll feed them. I had to get up to answer nature’s call anyway,” she yawned. Serendipity