ser·en·dip·i·ty (sěr'ən-dip'i-tē)
n. pl. ser·en·dip·i·ties

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
3. An instance of making such a discovery.

[From the characters in the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, who made such discoveries, from Persian Sarandīp, Sri Lanka, from Arabic sarandīb.]

ser'en·dip'i·tous adj., ser'en·dip'i·tous·ly adv.

Word History: We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that "this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word." Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of "a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of...."

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


Okay the reason for that lengthy definition is the following:
Right before I went on vacation three weeks ago, I happened to notice that my right rear tyre was a little on the low side (when I checked the pressure, it was only at 15 PSI). As I was heading to the airport later that morning, I had the choice to fill it up and hope for the best while it was parked in the airport garage and have a nice breakfast before having to be subjected to airport food for the next 18-hour timeframe or so (I was flying Internationally to England and this was about the time that would elapse), OR take it into the shop and hope that they could either repair it or get a new one on in less than an hour ~ I opted for the sumptuous breakfast repast…

When I returned from my “Dickensian Holiday”, the tyre seemed to be maintaining pressure okay. It had only lost a little over 5 PSI in the 10 days that it was parked; not too bad. I figured I could just keep an eye on it and wait until the weekend (of December 27th) to get it repaired or replaced. Well, Saturday morning came and I wanted to take it to my local tyre shop (there are many other chain shops right on my street: Big O, Midas, etc., but I prefer them); however, they were closed for the weekend for an extended Christmas break. No biggie, it made it through one week okay, so I figured what’s another week of checking the pressure every few days or so.

(To make a long story even longer ~ I figure that if you've wasted your time reading this far already, what's another minute or so.) Well, I took it into the shop today, figuring it could either be repaired (probably $20-30 with labour, etc.) or they would talk me into getting a whole (a half-tyre would do me no good) new tyre ($60-70 with labour, etc.)… it turned out that there was a screw in the tyre causing the slow leak. They could actually repair it and no new tyre was needed. It also turns out that I had purchased this exact same tyre at their shop and they have a life-time no-charge policy to fix the ones that they have sold.

Cost: $0.00, Time: 45 minutes or so.

I offered to buy them coffee and pastries (there was a really nice little bakery right around the corner that I went to while waiting for the repair ~ I had a jalapeño-cheddar roll that was great) as thanks, but they wouldn’t even take that.

Happy New Year, everyone! And a very serendipitous 2009 to all!