Murphy's Law

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

My first experience with Murphy's Law happened about 3 years ago. I was at a friend's lake house for the 4th of July. Now this was not one of those lake houses that your rich friend takes you to and you think "Holy hell this house costs more than my real house". This was an 800 sq. foot cabin on the lake with no shower, no television and no A/C. So what's a group of college aged, rambunctious kids to do? Well, we had a plastic baseball bat, no ball, and the yard was full of softball-sized pieces of tree bark, so naturally we started playing "Barkball". The concept was simple, someone would pitch a piece of bark and the batter would try to hit the tree bark as far into the yard as possible. Sounds like a great idea, right? 

We all take turns being the batter and the pitcher and eventually it's my turn to pitch. Keep in mind this game has been played flawlessly for the past hour. If it were a construction site there would be a large sign at the front that said "This site has been accident free for 1 hour". *Golf claps* I take my place in the yard to pitch and Kevin* steps up to bat. Kevin is a "sturdy:, but seemingly coordinated man, and I jokingly tell him "You better not hit me!". He assures me that he is not only great at "Barkball", but he is even better after that last Coors Light. I gently lob him a cantaloupe sized piece of bark which he immediately sends hurtling towards my right knee-cap at about 45 miles per hour. Next thing I know I'm on the ground with a bloody knee and Kevin is leaning over me saying "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I knew that was going to happen!"

Really Kevin?? You knew this would happen? Then why the hell did you do it?!?

If you're like Kevin and refuse to take responsibilities for accidents that you directly caused, then Murphy's Law is your solution.  How do you think Dick Cheney got away with his little Quail Hunting Incident?

*Names may have been changed because author can not remember the person's real name. 

So my most recent run-in with Murphy's Law happened last week. I need to preface this story by mentioning that I recently got a job. Now, it's no "resume booster", but it is a step above leaving a large blank space on my resume. Apparently, employers don't look too highly on a potential job candidate who has little to no work experience followed by a large period of unemployment. Snobs. 

My first day was last Thursday and it went pretty smoothly, my second day...not so smooth. As we were pulling into Nick's work I heard a strange flapping noise so I asked Nick to look at my tires when he got out. 

Me: "How do they look Honey??"

Nick: "Pretty good, except for this back one, I think you should go put some air in it."

I step out of the car to inspect the tire that Nick has implied is not flat and "just needs some air". The tire is flat, F-L-A-T. To give Nick some credit, it was early in the morning, he hadn't had his coffee yet and the tire did in fact "need some air". 

It also needed to not have a 5 inch gash in it (*note* gash in above picture). If I had of gotten this flat tire during my many weeks of unemployment it would have been no problem, just put on the donut and then I would have had all the time in the world to get it fixed. Since it was Friday, I even could have just waited until we were back in Columbus and gotten it fixed over the weekend. Could have...if we weren't planning to drive to Atlanta to fly to Dallas for the Tx vs. OU Red River Shootout that afternoon. 

So, as I'm sitting in the parking lot waiting for AAA to come save the day, I have to call my boss and tell her that I am going to be significantly late for my second day of work. I then have to take my car to "Jac's Auto and Tire Repair" since Eufaula does not have a National Tire and Battery (big shock there). The owner informed me that my tire cannot be salvaged and I need to get a new one, he also believes that my other rear tire is about to do the same thing and he recommended that I replace it. Since I have to drive to Atlanta and would prefer to not have my tire blow out while I'm driving 80 m.p.h on I-185, thus causing us to miss our flight and possibly our chance to see Texas beat the hell outta OU, I agreed to let him replace both tires.  Now there's a very likely chance that my tire would have been fine and this guy was just trying to get me to buy another tire from him, but with the way my luck was going that day I didn't want to take any chances. I decided to come back on my lunch break since I was already an hour late for work. I returned around 11 and the mechanic starts working on my car while I wait inside the office. I made small talk with the friendly secretary and eventually we were joined by another mechanic who was on his lunch break. He started making small talk with me also...

Mechanic: "Do you play golf?"

Me: "No, I've never tried. Do you?"

Mechanic: "Yea, I've been to a few courses around here blah, blah, blah"

Me: "Oh that's cool..."

*Silence*

Mechanic: "So where are you from?"

Me: "I just moved here from Austin."

*Silence*

Mechanic: "So...are you going to go to Eufaula High?"

*SILENCE*

I looked over at the secretary who is giving the mechanic a "you're an idiot" look, and then I looked back at the mechanic who just shrugged his shoulders, laughed and said, "what?" 

After closing my gaping mouth I informed the bright mechanic that I'm 22 years old and that I just graduated from the University of Texas. He apologized and luckily my car was ready just a few minutes later. As I drove away with my brand new tires I prayed that this streak of bad luck and poorly timed karmic events were geographically limited to Eufaula, AL and would not follow me to Dallas, TX. 24 hours later I was cheering the Longhorns to victory at a bar in Dallas with a dozen of my closest friends, and I knew the streak was broken.