Ms. Murphy, Reporting for Duty

Our bathroom is big enough to accommodate a drying rack. Still, whenever I take a shower, I move it to the hallway. 

“Why?” Johann once asked, sidestepping a load of whites to get to the front door.

“For safety,” I snapped.

“Safety?” he repeated.

I rolled my eyes. Yes, safety. Safety from slips and trips. Safety from knocking socks into the toilet. Safety from any number of problems that can arise when a flimsy metal rack takes up half the surface area of a cold tile floor. 

“Yes, safety,” I said, shaking the flimsy rack for effect and pretending to yank the bathroom door off its hinges. “Have we met?”

Johann and I have met. In fact, one of the very first things I did when we met was try to let myself into the wrong apartment. That can happen, I guess, if you’re traveling all the time. All the places start to look the same. Evidently so do all the winter coats because I almost walked out of the bar wearing the wrong one. Did I mention that I broke my suitcase the day before and dragged it around the snowy streets of Helsinki using just one wheel? Well I did. 

I warned Johann about my luck right from the get-go. “Stick with me and you’ll never have another dull moment,” I said. He probably thought I meant a life of love and excitement but I was really talking about train delays and traffic jams, freak weather patterns and inexplicable utility outages. You want to go out with me? Well buckle up. I am the human equivalent of a system failure; a walking, talking error message; the personification of “file not found.” You see that car with the malfunctioning alarm system? I did that. This is me, as advertised.

Be honest. Your ears perked up at the mention of inclement weather and now you have a story you want to share. No offense, but now is not the time. I mean, I don’t doubt that the time you got stuck in an airport… for an hour… because of snow…in Denver… in February was inconvenient and maybe even funny, but that’s not what I’m talking about. When it comes to weather, I’m on a whole other level. I’m talking about a cyclone in Madagascar, followed by a typhoon in Hong Kong, followed by a mudslide in Australia and topped off by an earthquake in New Zealand. That was 2016.

But let’s not get too hung up on the weather. I don’t want to lose sight of the forest for the trees. I have cell phone error messages that leave the professionals speechless. Account access issues that stump the most seasoned bank teller. I once went to a fancy tea house in Manhattan and had the waiter excuse himself to bring me a new pot, one where the lid could rotate to the “pour” position. He apologized saying he’s never seen such a thing happen before. 

I smirked. “Oh?” said. I was not surprised and neither was my companion. In the high tea of life, I am the screeching kettle. I am forever the exception, the freak accident. What can go wrong, will. I’m Ms. Murphy, reporting for duty. 

Speaking of duty, I embrace my role as Accident in Chief. I offer myself as a public service and a source of entertainment. I don’t let fear of the worst case scenario stop me from doing what I want to do. I mean, sure, I once mistakenly mailed my handbag to South Carolina, but that didn’t make me swear off the post office. And, yes, I once hailed a taxi that turned out to be an off-duty mini school bus. Who cares? I still got where I was going. Once upon a time, when I crossed paths with a nurse shark in Australia, did I get all excited and haul myself out of the ocean? You bet I did! But I still got back in the next day.  

Honestly, I could do this all day – skip from memory to memory, asking rhetorical questions about the time I broke into a luxury hotel suite or helped chase a pigeon out of an art museum – about what happens when you throw away your immigration paper work or decide to live in a tree house. And, really, that’s the problem. It’s not that any one thing is such a big deal – who doesn’t lose power in the middle of an operating system upgrade or have the water get turned off mere seconds after applying a deep conditioner every now and then? It’s when you put them all together, when you line them up, one right after another, that you have to wonder: What’s the problem here? Is this manifest destiny or selective memory or a hyperbolic sense of story? Do these things keep happening because I embrace them, or is it that I’ve just learned to accept them as part of life? Am I making the best of a bad situation or does my subconscious create this chaos just for something to do?

Sometimes people tell me that they know someone like me. Naturally, I’m intrigued. I want to hear about this other unfortunate soul who got themselves locked inside a public restroom at a frozen yogurt shop or was attacked by a flock of geese during a fire drill. Tell me all the details: Name, age, location, general physical description, last known whereabouts. I need to know who to look out for. On our own, we’re a little bit dangerous. Put us together and you got yourself a multiplier effect. We’ll agree to meet at that fro-yo shop to compare notes and by the time we’re done, we’ll have somehow set the geese on fire. You don’t believe me? Have we met?

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5 comments to “Ms. Murphy, Reporting for Duty”
  1. All I want in life right now is to travel with you somewhere only to turn around and look at the path of chaos and destruction behind us, with our exhausted respective partners shaking their heads.

    • For you, I would make an exception. Tell me next time you’re in Sweden. I’ll book ferry tickets… and then arrive by plane when the boat is inevitably canceled due to hight winds or rising tides or some other assorted nonsense that I didn’t even know was possible. xx

  2. My sister….traveled to Paris for the first time the weekend Princess Di was killed……was in New York City staying at the very hotel outside of which a car bomber parked his smoking vehicle in an attempt to blow the place up…they were understandably not allowed to re-enter during police investigation so they booked a single night away from that venue (with no clothes or hygiene products), only to have the water shut off at the hotel so they couldn’t even shower.

    Has experienced multiple flight issues including an airline strike delaying another departure to Europe by two days, and a tornado evacuation of an airport concourse.

    Has had ALL of her family’s luggage trapped in an ancient elevator while they attempted to leave for the airport.

    Evacuated from a hurricane (FL) and had the storm TURN IN ITS TRACK AND FOLLOW HER against all predictions.

    Has sat in a ballroom with her small children during a hotel-wide power outage during weather.

    SHE DOES NOT TRAVEL FOR WORK, or even travel extensively. She just has comical bad luck. We are traveling with her this summer on pretty major trip…wish us luck!

    • Oh. My. God. This is next level. I am sorry to say that I laughed out loud multiple times… but I LOVE IT. I am entertained and, really, isn’t that what’s most important? I kid. Do let me know how your trip goes. Here’s to breaking the cycle.
      N

  3. Nova, another home run. Hysterical. Thank you.
    And – stay away from me. No doubt I will set the geese on fire myself, thank you very much!

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