An Evil Law Giver

Remember Murphy?

He of "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" fame?  Remember him?

And the first corollary, "usually at the worst time?"

It's not that I expect a perfect life.  But there's a perniciousness in the old boy's law that's not explained by simple chance.  Otherwise, why would the fickle finger of fate nail us so many times on the same day.

Like today.

I woke up to glorious sunshine.  Good in one respect.  The bright morning eliminated the need to turn on the light.  Good because the light wouldn't work.  No electricity.

No electricity, no alarm.  No alarm, late to work.  Late to work, pissed off boss.  Pissed off boss who'd given me a tight deadline yesterday.

"How's that brochure on the new terminal tower coming?" he wanted to know.  "The airport authority wants it this afternoon."

"No problem," I assured him.

Well, maybe.  But I wasn't going there.

My assignment was a brochure touting improvements to the local airport.  Simple enough except for Murphy.

I finished the text, merged it with pictures of the new facility, and went to print out a sample for the client.  How many guesses do you need to figure out what happened?

Very perceptive.  The ink ran out half way through the first page.  By now, you can probably guess that there were no new cartridges in the supply cabinet.

Back into the car to go to the Staples store near the traffic circle.  Half way around the loop, and I'm out of gas.

"So please officer," I begged, "I really didn't mean to clog traffic up like this."

I was hoping that he'd let me go, that he couldn't see that I had murder in my heart.  If and when I meet Mr. Murphy, he's going to be dead meat.