Good Morning Murphy

It was seven in the morning; I stopped the alarm clock before it sounded off. The sky was dark and the air cold, but a song from the robin that took resident in a tree outside my window helped me to get out of bed. I sat on the side of the bed for about 15 minutes. You’ve heard the saying, if any thing can happen, it will, well this morning, my old friend Murphy paid me a visit and spent the better part of the morning with me.

I hadn’t seen Murphy for a while, but there he was making my life a little more eventful than normal, and giving me a reason to slow down and pay attention to what I was doing. I learned from the past that when I don’t take that moment, Murphy stays with me all day, and not even a robin can cheer me up. I had a class this morning and the hour was close for me to leave and pick up my friend.

The class was off campus, and I needed to print a map to show me how to get to the temporary location. The second hand on the clock seemed to be moving faster than normal, and the address was not where I had put it. It was five until the hour – I needed to be walking out the door in 20 minutes. While I waited for the CPU to load the street software, I looked for the address. At last!

Because the spacebar sticks, I pounded on the key to separate words and numbers. I felt like pounding my head-I should have done this last night. The search said the address didn’t exist. What! I took a deep breathe, and pounded the address out again using the advance search tool. Finally, I had a map to print. Now print, I thought, looking at the clock again. Red is flashing on the printer. Error message: Printer head stuck. I had never seen that error message. I reset the printer and started again. At last, it was printing-yahoo!

While the printer was doing its thing, I went to the kitchen to make myself some coffee to take with me. When I returned to the CPU, I grabbed the map, my purse, and briefcase and headed for the garage. I forgot my keys. Back into the house I went. Where did I put them? In the bedroom, maybe in the jacket from Sunday?

I ran up the stairs listening to my husband tells me to slow down - that nothing was that important. Down the stairs, I ran with the keys.

I’m in the truck, and pulling out of the garage when I realize I had left my coffee in the bedroom when I went through my jacket for the keys. Out of the truck I went again. By the time I got back to the vehicle, I felt as if I had run a twenty-yard dash.

I closed the garage – Oh No! I forgot my watch! I found the keys to the front door and run up the stairs again to the bedroom. I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, what is my problem. The world was not going to collapse if I’m late. I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, kissed my husband, and told him he was right.

I was finally on the road—behind a school bus that was stopping at every other block. By the time I got to my friend’s house, I wasn’t for sure if I should wait in front of her building or near the garage. At any rate, I waited two minutes and my friend came out of the garage. She pulled up next to me.

Rolling the window down I asked, “It’s my time to drive or do you want to drive?”

“I’ll drive I don’t feel like parking the car again.”

“No problem.”

I gathered my things, and locked the car. As I got into her car, I noticed the truck’s window was down. Out I went to unlock the truck and close the window. I was so exhausted when I finally got to her car, I didn’t want to move.

Even with the map, we still got lost, but that’s okay because we were not late. The classroom was next to a lunchroom with a thin partition that separated the two rooms. I was sitting next to that partition, and missed most of the lecture because of the noise.

I said good-bye to Murphy, as he joined the crowd in the lunchroom, and we walked out of the building. I laughed at myself and thought when I got home - Murphy must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.