Murphy's Law Post #1

You can see from the title of this post that I am planning ahead. Think I'm a pessimist? No, just a realist. When your last name is Murphy, Murphy's law is just part of life. As my father-in-law often says, "Our family members must've done something pretty bad back in the old country."

I do have to say that in the 9.5 years Ken and I have been together, I have been witness to a higher than normal incidence of bad/stupid/unlucky stuff than I can recall from life pre-Ken. The most mundane task or trip can turn into a struggle. Everything usually works out OK in the end since Ken--having lived a lifetime as a Murphy--has developed quite a bit of ingenuity for getting himself out of a jam. In comparison to some past experiences, yesterday's episode of Murphy's Law is quite tame but frustrating nonetheless:

If you've read my earlier posts, you know that yesterday Ken, our neighbor Todd, and Ken's friend/coworker Mike spent the day splitting wood at Mike's in-laws' property. Let me start by saying that everyone made it home safely, limbs, eyes, etc., intact. That was my first worry, to be honest. Ken is mechanically inclined so I knew he'd be able to work the logsplitter with no mechanical issues, but he is accident prone, which causes me great fear when he works with such unforgiving machinery.

Because there was going to be so much wood resulting from this expedition, Ken not only took his F150 on the journey but also stopped along the way to pick up his cousin John's beat-up old metal trailer, which is a handmade (not by John or anyone he knows) piece that looks for all the world like it was meant to haul coffins. Definitely crypt-shaped, though it's also perfect for holding a motorcycle, and I think that's why John acquired it in the first place. But I digress.

Ken, with Todd riding shotgun, picked up the trailer and met Mike at the location of the downed trees. The three spent the day splitting the wood, stackinng one cord onsite for Mike to retrieve later, and gradually piling the remaining wood in the bed of Ken's truck and in the trailer. Early estimates of the total amount of wood had been one-and-a-half cords, a nice half-cord for each of them for merely the cost of renting the splitter. In the final analysis, there was more like three cords of apple, oak, and cherry, nicely seasoned from sitting outside for a full year since being chopped down in the first place.

With the truck and trailer fully loaded, and with the end of the rental period for the splitter approaching, Ken and Todd hopped in the truck and headed home. All seemed well, and I talked to Ken as they were getting ready to leave around 3:45, and he was planning to be home in a little over an hour. Around 5:00 is when Murphy's Law kicked in. Ken was not home yet, and I was getting worried. I tried his phone once, and he didn't answer, but since he was in Jersey and you can't talk on a cell phone while driving in that state, I tried not to get more worried. At 5:30 he called me to report that they were about a mile from crossing the bridge into PA and that a tire had blown on the trailer. Egad, now what, I thought? No problem, Ken said. There is a spare tire for the trailer, and he had a jack and tools in the truck to change it.

Except, as it turned out, Ken didn't have a spinner in the truck and so couldn't get the damaged tire off the truck. The only choice they had was to limp down the road to the tool booth area by the foot of the bridge and ask for help from a state trooper. The troopers didn't have the right tool, either, but the tow truck driver, who is on-call at the bridge to help clear the lanes of traffic pronto if ever there is the need, did. And he even pulled his truck behind the trailer and used his forks to lift it so Ken wouldn't need to use the hand jack. Sweet. So Ken got the lug nuts off the wheel while Todd dug out the spare tire.

Around the time Ken realized the wheel wouldn't come off the trailer is when Todd found the spare. And it was flat. Let's pause and remember the wording of Murphy's Law: If something can go wrong, it will.

Their only choice: Ride the rest of the way home with a blownout tire on the trailer, and the trailer listing slightly to the left as a result. The finally made it home around 6:30, looking for all the world like a set of tinkers who had spent the day trolling for crap to throw in the truck and trailer. I kinda think the whole rig was overloaded, but I'm just glad they (a) made it home before dark and (b) made it home alive.

I realize this is an awfully long post about something fairly insignificant. Maybe you'll pity me just a little if I tell you that similarly long stories result from almost everything Ken gets himself involved in. Changing brakes on one of our vehicles? A hour-long job will turn into 5 hours and two trips to Pep Boys. Changing the faucet on our kitchen sink? That one took 4 hours, a cut to the hand, and three, THREE trips to Home Depot. So we won't even talk (for now) about the summer Ken built our detached garage in the backyard. "Oh, hon, it'll only take two months." Yeah, right. And maybe he should've taken my name on our wedding day!