At last!
After carping and moralizing and preaching and generally blowing out significant amounts of hot air over transgressions, omissions, and failings here, there, and everywhere, I have something to share that actually makes me feel good.
My loyal followers in Nigeria are probably well-familiar with my penchant for criticizing and ridiculing a local radio station for their “cat stuck in tree” attempts at superficial and self-congratulatory journalism. After all, I like to view myself as someone who covers news with depth, with insight, and pithy little observations around serious news, which by its very nature, is often bad news.
But for the record, I’ll always be cheering for that cat in the tree and anyone trying to get it down. Despite being a moralizing prick, I have my soft spots and moments of tenderness.
Down in Toronto, in the middle of rush hour, completely full-on downtown where the Jays play, a drama played out that made me feel good about people, which, in all honesty, I should do more of because I truly believe that most of us are well-meaning and conscientious.
Picture a crowded TTC streetcar, one of several travelling in succession along the Friday afternoon busy-ness of Toronto’s downtown core. Pedestrians jamming up the sidewalks, traffic choked to a virtual standstill. Just about every element on most people’s reason-list for not wanting to live and/or work in downtown Toronto.
Riders on one streetcar, like on any other day, lost in their thoughts, their music, their very anonymity. Maybe looking forward to the weekend, that is if they manage to make it home before Saturday dawns.
A shriek of “My cat, my cat!!” cuts through the fog of the hustle and bustle of everyday urban life. It catches the attention of the streetcar operator, which I guess should be expected from someone conveying dozens of people through the scene thus described.
A pedestrian walking along the sidewalk with a cat bag — a means of transporting your cat I surmise — has just had the misfortune of her cat escaping said bag and darting under that very streetcar, while it was stopped, and nestling itself in such a position that it would soon become two demi-cats should the streetcar resume operation. Pounding on the glass from the outside, she convinced the operator to stop.
And that’s when the world took spontaneous action. When the inner “real-ness” of people overrode their default, defensive, not-my-circus-not-my-monkey mindset.
The people on the streetcar sprang into action at the woman’s cries. They emptied the car and were all soon involved, on their hands and knees, outside on the roadway trying to locate and cajole the wayward feline.
They swept the undercarriage with their cellphone flashlights. They reached unsuccessfully toward the cat when they located it, but it was out of reach. Someone ran into a shop nearby and came back with a broom, but it wasn’t long enough. Someone came out of a bakery and offered her newly purchased baked treats, including the really good parts of a birthday cake, as an incentive to get the cat to come out.
Meanwhile, seven streetcars are backed-up and stopped behind this one. Pedestrians and riders alike went into the other lane and literally stopped traffic going the other way. From what I understand, there was no road rage, no profanity, no messy gun play, nobody got stabbed. And that right there is a story.
It’s getting desperate. The cat won’t move, now mostly because it has the shit scared out of it by the fact that all of Toronto is clutching and grabbing at it. The safety of that freaking bag is probably starting to look pretty good in hindsight.
Somebody comes running out of a store with another broom, but we already know that brooms don’t work. Dammit!
The somebody reaches the conclusion that all of us would have if given a few more seconds.
Let’s tape the brooms together and make a longer broom!
I have no idea where the tape came from but it’s enough for us to know that it made an appearance and a difference. And if some random serial killer just happened to be going by with his serial killer kit including duct tape, well, not only was a cat saved, but potentially some human as well, so a double good ending.
The cat was prodded out from the wheels of the street car, and in a moment of confusion, cause cats aren’t necessarily wizards when it comes to such things, somebody got a handle on the scruff of its neck and snatched it out from under the streetcar. An absolute Disney moment.
The cat lady was ecstatic, hugging just about everyone around, and that represented a lot of hugging. She was just so happy and relieved. I’ll bet once the adrenaline stops pumping, she’ll be overwhelmed again by the circumstances surrounding the rescue, and the broader meaning it has for us as humans.
We can be good. We can be kind. And if we don’t have time to think about it, our natural inclination is to help.
Like, we do care.
And to me, that’s awesome. Encouraging. And something I need to keep in mind when I walk around with the clouds of mistrust that too often occupy my relationships with broader humanity.
It took some lady and a cat, and a bunch of random strangers and patient passersby to re-educate me on this basic fact of life.
I’m glad for it and needed to share. And it’s way better than the piece that was scheduled to go out this morning.
And as for my criticisms of yourFM radio, they’ll continue apace and uninterrupted, only now I’ll cut them some slack when nit comes to those feel-good cat-in-tree stories.
COVER PHOTO: Image by Юрий Сидоренко from Pixabay
NEWSMAGRENFREW 