I swear, this happened last night.

Do you believe in "Murphy's Law"? That anything that can go wrong, will go wrong?

Hi. My name must be Murphy.

After doing an especially heavy shopping trip, I knew that I couldn't get everything up to my Condo in one go from the car, so two trips were indicated. I parked in front of the building, put the "flashies" on, and proceeded to take as much stuff as I could upstairs. As usual, Cleo was waiting for me, rushing out into the hall the second the door was opened a crack. Seeing that it was no sense trying to get her to go back inside, and she was being followed by Velvet anyway, I just propped the door open with my groceries, took off my work shirt, and made a beeline for the elevator to rescue the car before Mr. Parking Control comes along.

"Hi, Mr. Parking Control. Heh Heh... $50.00 you say... Well, Thank You too!"

@#$%@!*&%@!!

Park car. Head upstairs with the remainder of my groceries only to discover I left my security card in my work shirt pocket, which was now upstairs. Therefore, I'm stuck in the parking lot with no access to my own home, and my door propped open so anyone could walk in, and steal my whole house!

@#$%@*&%@!!

Finally, someone comes along and lets me in. I console myself with the fact that no one could steal anything, because they would be confronted by a creature with 80 claws, 4 sets of fangs, and weighing 42.5 pounds. My combined feline "gang".

I get upstairs, and see Velvet guarding in the hallway, and Bella's one eye and ear peering out from the doorway. Good! time to get organized, put this stuff away, and have some dinner. Oh, but Murphy isn't done with me, no, not by a long shot. The big package of Spaghettini I just bought is open on one end. Guess which end I pick it up by? Spaghettini noodles go streaming all over the floor. My lightning reflexes stop the flow about halfway short of emptying the bags contents everywhere.

Thank God for small mercies. The cats think it's playtime in heaven. All four of them. Isn't it neat how brittle this stuff is? Bella makes off with some into the living room. As I'm cleaning up I bonk my head into an open cupboard door while getting up. It does not bleed too much.

@#$%@*&%@!!

25 minutes later, the disaster is under control, and I have some water boiling, having resigned myself to having a couple of hot dogs, and that's it. I get out a knife, and open the package of hot dogs. Five of them go flying on to the floor. Tippy runs in, and makes off with one.

@#$%@*&%@!!, and @#$%@*&%@!!

Sit on the floor and just cry? The water on the stove boils over as I chase Tippy around. It's no use. I surrender. I pour myself a large glass of wine, spilling some on the counter.

Thank You, Mr Murphy.

Copyright © Bill Mason
April 19, 2002