Meet my friend: Murphy S. Law

On the wall of my orthodontist's office, next to the reclining chair where I, as a child of 11 years to 14, sat far too many times to have my palette expander checked or have yet another bracket replaced, was a large poster of Murphy's Law. Possibly placed there to alleviate the tedium or to lighten the mood, but whatever the reason, there it was in all it's Times New Roman glory for me to gaze upon. Since there's really not much else to do when you have the large, hairy hands of a wanna-be comedian turned oral sadist in your mouth but stare at the same poster, time after time, by the end of my orthodonist's reign of terror on my mouth I had committed many of the laws to memory. Since I was a young and easily influenced young lass, the covenants of a man named Murphy left an unfortunate lasting impression on my life forever after. There beginning a lifetime of looking at life through crystal clear glasses. My husband calls me a pessimist but I disagree, preferring instead to refer to myself as a realist. Does life suck? Sometimes, yes it does. Do shitty things happen to people who don't deserve it. Yepper, you betcha. Is it really impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious? Ooh, that's a head scratcher! Is the glass half full or half empty? I don't really care as long as I don't have to pay full price for whatever is in that partly filled glass.

For those of you not familiar with my friend Murphy and his axioms, his philosophy on life can be summed up with one line:

"If anything can go wrong, it will."

Oh, yes. It will.

My husband, a man who was born with a set of perfectly straight teeth, therefore never necessitating a visit to any orthodontist, jocular or otherwise, should have been given a pocket copy of that Murphy's Law poster. Then he might have known that the very act of getting wrecked on cheap white wine on a Sunday evening would guarantee that our daughter would pick that night to spike a high fever while simultaneously cutting most of her baby molars and spend the entire night waking us up with her wails of pain.

In case you were wondering, I also partook of the wine - like I was going to say no to wine, cheap or otherwise? Psssh. - but I knew when to say when. My man, who had gotten complacent because our child is a wonderful sleeper, tossed down a goodly amount of the drink. Not only that but he decided that he wanted to pass out sleep on my side of the bed that evening, convinced that he is that its the more comfortable side, and my side has the baby monitor next to it. I told him that the person on that side is responsible for listening for signs of baby distress and he said he was worthy of the task.

Murphy's Law, honey, Murphy's Law.

Do you think I let him off the hook, when at 1am Chicky Baby sounded the first alarm? If you said yes then you don't know me very well. He has to learn that life is not all sunshine and ponies. He has to learn that sometimes shit happens.

And I took my side of the bed back.