Murphy’s Law

Where do i begin? Probably with Sunday. I went to bed on Sunday night thinking i’d sleep from 9:30 pm to 3:00, wake up to take morning meds, quick potty break for Cashew, and then back to bed until 8:00 am. Cashew had other plans. She figured she ought to have a potty break every two to three hours, and she told me so, all night. When i finally did roll out of bed i was exhausted, both from lack of sleep and from yelling for everyone to be quiet and go back to bed. I let the dogs out and began my morning routine. It wasn’t until i went to take my curlers out that i realized it was going to be a day of catastrophe. As i began to unroll them i noticed the foam was squished and indented. I had been notably stressed when winding my hair around the curlers and apparently a bit overzealous about the whole process. Instead of making curls that wound downwards towards the floor…like hung down…key word “down”…i had managed to make teeny tiny curls that stuck straight out sideways. My hair was defying gravity, a lot. I stared in the mirror in disbelief. I tried frantically to fix it with a brush. Perhaps if i brushed it out a bit the curls would lengthen. Nope. I somehow managed to make a fro. I stared once again into the mirror, dumbfounded. How had this gone so horribly awry?! I had achieved quite a stylish look just the day before…how on earth had i used the very same materials to create this disaster?!

I couldn’t leave it like that. So, i did the only thing i could…added water. It deflated the fro. It did that. It also left a half wet mop half wavy mess going on over my head. In went more curlers, trouble shooting the flat spots. It was a ridiculous attempt at salvaging something i should have just scrapped and pulled a hat over. At that point i realized i had given the dogs a full bowl of water. I sighed. Never a good thing to do before a road trip. I opened my email to the news that the life group i was driving to a different city to attend was cancelled. I had an order of 24 custom themed cookies to bring to said life group. What on earth was i going to do with them? I was supposed to visit a friend on the way. I figured i would give them to her and she could share them with anyone she felt needed a cookie during the week. So i set off to pick up the cookies. I did pick up the cookies. Unbeknownst to me, i managed to do that and the next couple legs of my journey with the blue emergency touch-up curlers still hanging off the back of my head. Then i had to turn right around and drive back to my town to let the dogs out since i had stupidly given them a whole bowl of water. I went to turn on the dog nanny cam so i could make sure the dogs were alive while i was away, and the thing didn’t work. I spent half an hour on the phone with tech support who concluded they had no idea what was wrong with the camera and would have to analyze data recorded by the device over time to see where the error was occurring. This required going through a third party and downloading other apps to my phone to track the device and its functions. I was now half an hour late, had no way of monitoring if the a/c was still working for the dogs while i was out, and as it turned out, i was out of gas. Also, as soon as i locked the property gate i realized i was wearing a pair of pants with 3 gaping holes in them. I used my box cutter to cut up some band aids in the first aid kit in my purse and placed the sticky part over each one of the holes in my pants leg until super glue could be obtained. I then stripped my pants off and super glued the holes in the pants shut. I also super glued my finger and a portion of my leg. It was at this point that i realized the cookies were melting. The beautifully decorated cookies were melting into the plastic and the icing was beginning to run off the sides of a couple of the cookies. The ones that were salvageable began sticking to the plastic. I sighed. It seemed there was a definite theme to this day. I turned the a/c knob to 4 and directed all vents at the cookies. As i was adjusting one of the a/c vents i noticed a flying object slide across the street. I was on a 1 lane winding road and a pickup pulling a trailer was passing me headed in the opposite direction. As he took the curve the trailer unloaded its cargo and sheets of scrap metal slid across the street, into the grill of my suv, and under my tires. I stopped. The pickup didn’t. I got out and surveyed the damage. The windshield was fine. The tires were fine. The front of the car might have had a new scratch or two but i was too rattled to care. I kept waiting for lightening to strike the radio antenna or the homestead to burst into flames in my absence. I thought, “If i continue this journey is something worse going to happen? Should i go home? Should i lie down, go back to sleep, and try this day again?” I was fairly sure that was not how things worked. I didn’t get a do-over for monday cuz it wasn’t going according to my plan. I got back on the road. Traffic wasnt as bad as i figured it would be in the city. I was beginning to think my luck was changing when a semi hit the concrete barrier blocking off the construction zone because the road curved and the semi didn’t. Sparks and bits of cement flew across the lanes and the semi swerved and rocked on the tires, quickly veering into the adjacent lane, moving me and two other cars out of its way reactively. It was at this point that i began praying, “Dear Lord please help me. I think the Devil is trying to kill me.” Later on down the road a sedan managed to kick a rock up into my windshield. A sedan. At this point i realized i hadn’t eaten anything but a handful of carrots and some avocado dip all day. I was hungry. I began looking for mcDonalds signs along the highway. There were none! It seemed i drove 15 miles without a hint of a mcDonalds on my side of the highway. They were all available on the other side of the highway…for cars traveling in the opposite direction. Then i missed my exit only to find myself staring at the biggest mcDonalds sign i had ever seen in my life. I thought, “Divine Intervention”. The freeway exit ramp took me towards and past…and then long past the giant mcDonalds sign. I was afraid at this point. What else was going to implode during this day? I kept on going, not because i thought God wanted me to, but for selfish reasons. I felt i couldn’t trudge home with my tail tucked between my legs like a kicked dog. I had to do something right today, and i was going to keep trying until i found that thing that was going to go according to plan, or at least end well. I really wanted to study the bible. I felt, with the day i was having, i could use some study of the bible. I asked my friend if i could come to her life group since mine was cancelled. She agreed. After visiting with her i went with her and her family to their life group, where we ended up visiting so long we didn’t get to studying the bible. It was great to see familiar faces i had missed very much! We had brought the custom cookies to the life group, since my life group was cancelled, thinking everyone could enjoy them there. I did not realize the host of the life group was also a cookier, so i had essentially brought her competition’s product into her house. Oops. :/ on the way home i did not encounter any deer. I did however have to swerve off the road twice to avoid hitting two dead dogs, one great pyrenees and one boxer. They were both beautiful animals, stone cold dead. I returned home to take the trash to the intersection only to find a medium pile of still-warm glistening scat on the concrete before the tool shed. I didn’t recognize the size or consistency. I would have to research what animal was likely watching me from the dark as i took the trash out. I put the dogs in the dog run. Then the coyotes started. I knew better than to take them out of the dog run for Cashew would ignore my orders and go straight to coyote hunting in the dark. I left them in the run. Cashew began barking, snarling, and jumping on the chain link fence about 5 minutes later. She had likely located whatever left the scat. I rubbed my temples. It began to rain. I moved the car up on the mulch pile to keep it out of any pending flood waters that were to arrive. Here’s the thing; i’m alive, the dogs are alive, the car still runs, nothing caught fire or was struck by lightening. As far as i know, i’m still employed. I got to see my friend, who i had missed dearly, her baby, her husband, and a bunch of familiar faces in their life group. I got to catch up with old friends, they said a beautiful prayer for the group, i finally got my hands on some “yummi sushi and grill” sushi, and i got to play with 4 sweet dogs that weren’t mine. In the end, it was a good day, but i feel that angels must have been working overtime to offset Murphy’s law. Sitting here with my drowned-rat hair and my super-glued pants…that’s all i’m gonna say.