Murphy's Law Morning

As Courtney heads downstairs, I start spraying the pam on the skillet and crackin' eggs. This much I do remember, probably only because I love the smell of eggs cooking. What could make that sensation better? If you're an American, you better have said bacon.

"Mmmmm. Bacon," said the Homer Simpson in me.

I tore a couple of strips to shreds, tossing them into the eggs before whisking them into breakfast deliciousness. I then turned the oven on and tossed a couple of slices of bread in.

Soon enough, my eggs 'n bacon scramble with toast was ready, first cup of delicious french vanilla coffee already poured into our commemorative Niagra Falls Starbucks cup.

(I think I just realized what went wrong this morning... More on that later).

Just as I dug into my eggs, Courtney was back from her run, happy to see breakfast ready.

"You've been cooking for me again, lately!" Courtney said with excitement. At some point, breakfast became my duty, I guess. I look forward to other duties (hah... duty) that shall be bestowed upon me during the course of our relationship in the near and everlasting future.

Courtney had just begun digging into her eggs herself when I gave a her kiss goodbye, and headed out the door for my 7am client, bike seat and helmet in hand. As I headed down on the elevator, I checked my phone.

"Perfect," I thought to myself.

Outside, my increasingly maligned, rusty ole bike sits at an awkward angle. It had been a few days since I rode it, and over the past few days I noticed it appearing in different awkward angles as I walked by. Bottom line, it was still locked, so I didn't care how I found it.

Bending over to unlock my bike, I noticed a spider had created quite the web alongside my bike. Home-wrecker Joe had his way with it, the spider falling harmlessly to the ground and making its escape. I then used my lock to destroy the remnants of Mr. Spider's home before locking it to the side of my bike.

As I put my seat back into its tube, or whatever it's called, I went to tighten it and noticed a ladybug on the handle.

Odd... But whatever. Everything had been going swimmingly this morning thus far. Perhaps the ladybug was a good omen to counter whatever that nasty looking, gray turd of a spider was.

After locking my seat in its place, I start to pull the bike out. Something felt odd, though. Like the breaks were being activated. I looked around and nothing was stuck in the wheels or what have you. I then examined the frontal breaks a bit more closely.

Jammed.

Somehow the breaks had made their way underneath the rim of the tire. Super! It was at that moment I realized why I should've cared that my bike was presenting itself in increasingly awkward angles each time I walked by it over the past few days. It now seems rather obvious that people had been banging into my bike (How? I'm not quite sure), causing something to go awry.

"(Expletives... Lot's of 'em)," I said to myself.

Quickly, I took out my phone to give my client a call. Canceling at the last moment is not something I'm accustomed to, and am certainly not a fan of. But worry not, they will get a free session for the inconvenience (Client Relationships 101).

I opened my phone and OFF.

My phone has an odd habit of turning itself off without provocation, so I turned it back on again. The start up screen glared aaaaaaand OFF. After several other, ultimately futile attempts, I ran upstairs, hoping all my phone needed was to be plugged in.

"What'd you forget?" Courtney said when I returned, presumably worried grumpy Joe was alive and well. Surprisingly enough (even to myself), I was immediately able to laugh of the ridiculousness of the past few minutes, even though plugging my phone in proved to be futile as well.

After explaining what had happened, I concluded I had to resort to using my e-mail to notify the client. Since we had exchanged numbers in person, I couldn't even look up their number in my e-mail and use Courtney's phone.

Luckily, she's as sweet as an afternoon cup of lemonade, so she wasn't at all bothered. (She might read this, so that description was specifically for her).

Courtney apologized for an odd start to the day, and left for work herself. Meanwhile, I went to pour myself another cup of coffee, to comfort me as I recounted this Murphy's Law Morning.

Everything this morning had gone as planned, so it was amazing how quickly things went astray. For the life of me, I can't figure out why things went down the way they did (I'm talking cosmic reasons here, people).

It wasn't until I was writing about drinking my morning coffee that I realized what the Hell must've gone wrong.

I drank out of my Niagra Falls cup. I never drink out of that cup. I pretty much always drink out of my Cleveland cup. Clearly that's what went wrong. And if that's not what tipped the cosmic scales off balance, then I'm now all the more superstitious for absolutely no reason, whatsoever.

Joe Baur is the writer/creator of CHOSA Film, Mildly Relevant News, and co-creator of Throw!Kick!Punch!

You can follow Joe B at twitter.com/joebaur42

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