Murphy’s Law

Here is another attempt at a something funny.
Do tell me if it even remotely achieves the goal!

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Murphy’s Law.
It was all because of Murphy’s Law.

“If anything can go wrong, then it will go wrong.”

It started off only as a bad day. I woke up to the sound of rain hitting hard on my windowpanes. Looking at the time I realized that I had switched off my alarm long time ago and had overslept. In three simple words, no make those four simple words – Shit! I was late.
Okey-Dokey. Still manageable, I thought, being the over optimistic soul that I am. But someone else (yep you got that right -- Mr. Murphy it was) had other plans for me.

In my house everything moves like clockwork, including the clocks. Especially in the mornings. Everyone has his or her slots for the bathroom, the temple (it’s a small one and can only accommodate one person comfortably at a time. Two people in that room means that one of them is standing on the other’s toe, if he or she is lucky; or some other body part if he or she is unlucky) and the kitchen (Mom says that she likes to cook alone in peace, and well so do the rest of us). Everyone has a standard routine. Wake up, clean up, make tea/coffee/juice/beverage of your choice (no… Mom does not allow sodas or hard drinks in the morning. As a matter of fact she does not allow hard drinks at any point of the day. Or night.), butter your toast, have breakfast, and get out. Don’t come in anyone else’s way and you will be assured of a peaceful and uneventful morning. Come in somebody’s way, and boy have you had it or what!

Naturally, since I was late, I missed all my slots, which resulted in banging on the bathroom door to tell Dad that could he please not read the paper today (he grumbled something and came out only precisely 1 minute earlier than his usual time), squeezing in with Mom in the temple and getting a first class glare out of her that could scare a hungry lion off it’s freshly killed prey and finally making coffee with Minnie (my younger sister) who claimed that I was too fat and was taking up most of the space in the kitchen, and that she does not like the smell of coffee and “ that is so not how you make coffee! Here let me show you how it is done…” and blah and blah and blah and blah (she was still talking when I ran out of the kitchen, and God alone knows to whom!).

After successfully upsetting my entire family without actually doing anything, I ran in the rain to the bus stop struggling to keep my umbrella in an umbrella-like shape which was getting deformed because of the strong wind (more like a windstorm), only to have the bus that I was supposed to be in, splash muck on me and speed away like it’s tail was on fire.

So there I was, in the middle of a thunderstorm, late, wet, covered in muck and with a un-umbrella shaped umbrella, which was of no use frankly. What more could go wrong?

Oh lots more – trust me, lots more.

I took a cab to the station and ended up with a burning hole in my wallet. It was the end of the month and I really couldn’t afford luxuries like cabs and all. Especially ones that cost twice the average cost because of the traffic caused by the heavy incessant rain. The trains were running late and while waiting for it to come, three things were going on in my head.

1. I am very late.
2. Exactly how many things does the rain affect? Busses, roads, trains, traffic, people… the list is endless, and
3. I hope this Murphy fellow is dead; otherwise I’ll kill him with my bare hands.

The train came rumbling along, with people hanging outside the compartment, like there was a prize or something for the person who managed to hang using the least space, and yet managed to be as further away from the actual door as possible. In no mood to take part in such a competition (if there was such a competition in the first place), I fought and struggled and got into the ladies compartment of the train. This involved a lot of pushing, even more of being pushed, and lots and lots of screaming. Women, I tell you. They can scream for no rhyme or reason. Somewhere in this commotion, I registered the sound of cloth tearing. Funny, that in so much commotion I still heard that sound so distinctly, as if it was something very close to me that tore. After having mentally congratulating myself for having such sharp ears, I turned around to look for the poor victim so that I could inform her that her shirt/trouser/kurti/any other piece of clothing had torn, flash a sympathetic smile and in general behave like a super-savior. Imagine my horror when I turned back and saw that it was my duppatta that was stuck in a nail that was sticking out in all it’s glory. No wonder it sounded like it was close to me: I was wearing it. Some other lady took off the remaining part of my duppatta from the nail, handed it to me, flashed me a sympathetic smile and, generally behaved like a super-savior. What was it with people and super- savior behavior anyways? It wasn’t like she saved me or my duppatta or something. Weirdo.

So, now I was in the middle of an extremely overcrowded train, which was bursting at its seams, very late, wet, covered in muck, with a un-umbrella shaped umbrella, which I really didn’t know what to do with and a torn duppatta. What a sight I must have made!

Someone tapped my shoulder… “Hey…are you from VTS?”
“Of course you are! I remember you now… but I forgot your name… ”

The source of this monologue was, I discovered to my absolute horror, a girl from my school (VTS = Villa Theresa Convent School) who used to look just like Barbie Doll personified. In fact she still did. Her name was Mellissa, and she was a year senior to me. I really hated her in school, because she was this ultra-pretty, dainty little thing overflowing with artificial sweetness. In fact I don’t think anyone liked her. You know how some people are, just being artificially sweet for the record, asking about your problems only to feel better about their life? Mellissa was their leader. After you spoke with Mellissa and her people even for two minutes and answered the questions asked to you about your breakup-with-boyfriend/fight-at-home/sickness/any-other-sad-event you would generally like to forget, you would be left with a feeling of acute depression and shame. No one yet has discovered a reason for this yet, but it happens.

She was silent because she was looking at me from top to bottom in a way one looks at a piece of chocolate cake which has been in the fridge for god-knows-how-long and has a some sort of fluffy green thing growing on it.
“Have you put on weight? Now, don’t neglect your health like this sweetie…”
“You used to be so cute and chubby in school… I’m sure if you put in some hard work you’ll be able to look like that in no time!”
She came close to me then, wrinkled up her delicate little nose a bit, and whispered loud enough for the entire compartment to hear…
“Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but some of your mud-pack is still in your hair…”
About 50 pairs of eyes belonging to women within the age group of 16 to 66 shot immediately towards my hair.
“Speaking of hair… hasn’t yours thinned out a lot?” she said her normal voice, still loud enough for the entire compartment to hear.
50 pairs of eyes belonging to women within the age group of 16 to 66 stayed glued to my hair, analyzing whether it was thin or not.
“Oh well…my station is here… got to go now… you take care of yourself ok?” she said with her eyes huge and innocent. “And the next time I see you, I want to see slightly less of you ok!” She giggled at her own stupid joke and thankfully got off the train.
I unclenched my jaw, slowly opened my fists that had very tightly shut on their own and took a deep breath. All of those 50 pairs of eyes had apparently found some other thing to stare at, and I sincerely thanked God for that.

I analyzed my situation. I was in the middle of a not-so-crowded train, very late, wet, covered in muck (and not mud-pack, contrary to what some Barbie-bitches thought), with a un-umbrella shaped umbrella, which I decided to throw away, thoroughly stared at by 50 pairs of eyes, and super depressed because some hoity-toity Barbie bitch thought I was over-weight. And my day had only just begun.

I reached office, and immediately ran to the loo to make myself a little presentable. After removing the muck from my hair and pinning my duppatta so that it didn’t look torn anymore I returned to my cubicle and dived headfirst into work. There is nothing better than work to get your mind off irritating things. After all, nothing beats work on the irritation scale!

Thankfully the rest of the day in office passed peacefully. I have a feeling it was because I refused to talk to or even look at anybody in office, and just sat on my chair, completely involved in my work. And even though most of the results I was trying to achieve were just dancing away to somewhere else where I was not, I refused to take bait and let Mr. Murphy have another laugh at my expense.

On my way back home, I contemplated on what had happened to me that day. It was a clear-cut case of Murphy’s Law. And I realized that if Mr. Murphy up there wants it like that, then that is how it is going to be! I looked up at the sky, having this sudden feeling that he was looking at me and smiling, thinking “ I got you today, didn’t I?” I felt that the two stars twinkling in the far corner were his eyes, twinkling with merriment. And while I was looking up at the sky and trying to understand this weird feeling, and walk at the same time, I walked right into this big puddle of ankle deep muck and rainwater. After walking out of it and realizing that the new sandals that I was wearing, (yes the same ones that cost me the sky, which I found after three Saturdays of non-stop shoe hunting, the ones that were so comfortable it felt like I was wearing nothing,) were completely ruined and now looked like some beggar’s sandals. I stopped, afraid of walking into god knows what next and looked up at the sky again. Those two starts were twinkling and shining even more brightly than they were when I walked into the muck while looking at them. Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe it wasn’t. But I smiled for the first time in the day anyways.

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until next time...