Murphy strikes again, and again ~ August 31, 1989

David Heiller

Everybody knows Murphy’s Law, which states: “If anything can go wrong, it WILL go wrong. There are many other Murphy Laws, which I’ve mentioned from time to time. Mike Hruby, Askov school superintendent, calls these “Murphy’s Laws of Random Perversity:

1. Left to themselves—all things go from bad to worse.

2. Anything that can go wrong—will go wrong and at the worse possible moment.

One of Murphy's children.

3. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong—the one that will go wrong is the one that will do the most damage.

4. If you play with a thing long enough—you will surely break it.

5. If everything appears to be going well—you have obviously overlooked something.

6. Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.

There is one other one that parents all know by heart, Murphy’s Law 17-C: “If children are going to misbehave, they will do it at the worst possible time.”

That came true this weekend for our family. We were at my mom’s house for a mini-family reunion on Sunday. With my brother and sister and a houseful of children all present, our son, Noah, decided he didn’t want to eat the Sunday dinner.

It started when I wouldn’t let him stand under the white cedar tree with his cousin to coax a black squirrel into eating a peanut out of his hand. I have a rule that only one cousin per black squirrel is allowed under the cedar tree, but Noah didn’t know that rule, and protested with tears.

I am quite certain that there must be a Murphy's law pertaining to going in the kiddie pool fully clothed and with shoes on.

So, I carted him off to the bedroom, banished, until he could stop crying. Meanwhile the chicken and pork and creamed corn and tomatoes and potato salad waited in stony silence, along with the house full of relatives.

Noah finally stopped crying, and came out to look at the kids’ table. But he didn’t have a chair to sit on, only the cushioned box, so it was back to the bedroom in tears.

(Which brings up Murphy’s Law, 17-D: When a child can’t think of anything to cry about, they can come up with some real doozies.)

So we ate without him, in stony silence. He wouldn’t budge, and I wouldn’t budge. Finally my sister, Jeanne, went in and mediated. I don’t know what she said, but before long he was at the table, on the box, cleaning his plate and acting fine, which is his normal behavior.

(Murphy’s Law, 17-E: When you reach an impasse, ask your sister for help.)

We started talking again around the table, and I thought about making some excuse, but my sister and brother both looked so relieved that it wasn’t their kids doing this that I didn’t bother. My wife, Cindy, broke the ice. “Did your kids ever act like that?” she asked Jeanne, who has two kids, age eight.

“Yeah, for about seven years,” Jeanne sighed.

I guess they know about Murphy’s Law 17-C.