Murphy's Week

This week has been really long and totally wrong. Monday was my day off, and I don’t have any complaints about it.

Murphy’s Law was in full force beginning Tuesday, which seemed like a bad Monday to me. I started down the stairs to take towels out of the dryer. I flipped the switch and the stairwell light burned out. Why is it that when one light burns out it starts a chain reaction? When I turned on my closet light, it went out too. It’s always dangerous for me to choose my outfit for the day when I can’t see into the depths of my closet.

At work I spent the morning putting out fires instead of working on month end. At noon, I made a trip to Dollar Tree to buy table decorations for an upcoming meeting. I was proud of my efficient shopping until I couldn’t find my car keys. I finally set my packages on the ground and thoroughly searched each compartment of my new purse. No keys. I patted down all my pockets, first the raincoat and then my slacks. My son has a set of keys so I knew (as a last resort) I could call him. One time when he bailed me out, he happened to pull on the door and it wasn’t locked. I don’t like repeating mistakes so I checked the car door. It opened, and I fully expected to see my keys in the ignition. They weren’t! Now what? Then, I saw them in the cup holder.

You would have thought that would have been enough excitement for one day. After work, I went to the gym to de-stress, and when I came out I noticed my trunk lid was up. I must have pushed too many buttons when I locked the doors. I walked over and casually closed it like I always leave my trunk open even in a rain shower.

The good thing about Wednesday—it had to be better than Tuesday. I forgot my closet light was out until I flipped the switch and nothing happened. Still, I managed to get dressed and out the door on time. At work, I jumped into month end. I was a woman on a mission: Make up for yesterday when everything seemed to go wrong.

An hour later I wanted a cup of coffee and headed down the hall to the kitchen. I was preoccupied with work, but noticed one shoe was clicking and the other wasn’t. I looked at my feet and discovered I had on two black shoes but they definitely weren’t mates. One was my Liz Baker shoe with about an inch heel and the other was a Clark shoe with flat rubber soles. And I thought my limp was because of my bad knee!

I pondered what to do about this wardrobe malfunction. My first thought was to sit at my desk and keep my feet out of sight. That didn’t seem like such a great idea since I had plans to go to friendship lunch at noon. I couldn’t imagine walking into Bandana’s with mismatched shoes on my feet.

Following the suck-it-up-and-deal-with-it philosophy, I walked into my boss’s office. “I need to go home,” I told him. I knew it wouldn’t be a problem to go home, but I didn’t want to just disappear for half an hour.

“Is something wrong?” he asked. His concern was so touching that I couldn’t lie.

“Not really,” I said. “I just need to change my shoes. They are both black, but they aren’t mates.”

On the way home, I thought about how my week had been going. I was beginning to feel pretty silly, but blamed my problems on brain overload. I’m sure it has nothing to do with my impending birthday or that nonsense about senior moments. I saw how dementia changed Jim, and I know the difference.

I decided to go with the Clarks which are the most comfortable shoes I own. As I drove back to work, I decided the burnt-out bulb was the reason I pulled out mismatched shoes. After all, if anything can go wrong, it will. Isn’t that the basis of Murphy’s Law?

We’ll skip the rest of the week including almost running out of gas and pumping it in the middle of a thunderstorm. One great thing about today—the week is winding down to its overdue end. When I wake up in the morning, it will be a brand new week and I can scoff at Murphy’s Law.