Murphy's law

"Everything will take longer than you think." Because of this, my dad always taught me to allow extra time--leave a few minutes early for an appointment, because there may be traffic on the way; quit your project 30 minutes earlier than you planned, because something will inevitably go wrong that you will need to fix; don't pack your schedule too full, because something is bound to come up that will alter your plans.

I stay in a constant state of rush. I am always on the go and always like to keep my schedule packed. I am a Planner, therefore I plan my schedule to the smallest details for months ahead at a time. Mom always laughs at me when I call her up and ask her what her plans are for some random date 3 months away. I, of course, am busy working on plans that I need her help with. She always pencils me in on her calendar and reiterrates several times that her plans will probably change and for me not to be upset if they do. (She is probably the only person close to me that stays busier than I...even though sometimes it seems like all she does is read, I know that is not true.)

I can always guarantee when I go to the grocery store and I only have one or two items in hand and I go to the shortest line, it will always no doubtedly take longer to go through that line than the longest line in the store. The person in front of me will either have an item that wasn't coded correctly and the cashier will have to call a price check, or the check that the customer writes can't be processed because the cash register breaks, or the customer in front of me forgot to grab that second bag of potatoes and has to run over to produce to get another. And there I stand, patiently waiting for the shortest line to move forward. And I can certainly guarantee that if after seeing the short line taking longer I move to another line, the same problems previously mentioned will start again and I will be stuck waiting just as long. Then I will end up wishing I had just stayed in the first short line to begin with.

It's never just one thing that causes you to run behind...it's always a combination of several things. Your alarm conventiently forgets to go off on time, then as you are racing to get ready on time, you get lipstick on your shirt and have to change--at least three times. You get all the fixings for a bowl of cereal ready and realize you don't have any spoons clean, so you have to stop and get breakfast on your way in. But when you go to start your car, it just grunts at you and refuses to wake from its nightly slumber. After several minutes of pleading with your car not to do this to you today and begging God to help you out, it coughs and then starts. And it never fails, as you are running late for work, every single car in front of you has time to spare before theirs! It's almost creepy how even the signal lights seem to taunt you as just prior to pulling up to go through them, they casually turn amber then red. When you finally arrive 20 minutes late, you quietly sneak into your office, sit down at your desk, and then realize that today was your day off.

Who is Murphy anyway? Why does he get to be so famous (or infamous rather) just for stating the obvious? Everyone knows that Murphy's laws exist. It's part of life. I guess now, we just know what to call them. Grrr...