Does Murphy Live Here?

You can probably tell by the title that I recently had one of those Murphy’s Law sort of days. It all began because I decided to power wash around the pool area. It was looking a little dingy and I thought it would be good to spruce it up since we were showing the house that evening.

I pulled out the power washer and found that it was out of gas. I asked my dear hubby, Tim, if he knew if we had any. Every container  he checked was empty. I volunteered to go get gas while Tim finished lunch.

Charlie, my standard poodle, loves to go for car rides. When the temperature is much more than 70 degrees, I don’t generally take him because it is too hot and I don’t want him sitting in the car while I am running my errands.  Since I was only going to get gas, I invited Charlie to go with me and he gladly ran to the garage. I arrived at the gas station and filled my containers with gas and then decided to go in and buy a fountain drink. I didn’t want Charlie to overheat so I decided to leave the car running. I conscientiously took the remote opener with me but left the key in the ignition and locked the doors. When I got back out, the remote would not open the car doors. My purse was in the car. The hidden key was no where to be found and I did not have my cell phone with me. I went back inside and used the phone to call Tim. He and my son scoured the house for a spare key but could not find one. Our options were to call a locksmith or take the title to the dealership and have a key made. Tim decided the dealership option was the way to go. I stood outside the car to make sure Charlie was OK while he comfortably slept inside. An hour and a half later, Tim arrived back with the new key. It opened the lock, but felt funny. Charlie was perfectly fine and was very comfortable.

I was able to drive home and then decided to “test” the new key in the ignition. The car wouldn’t shut off. We could not get the key out of the ignition and we couldn’t turn it to get the car to shut off. The dealership had just closed since it was the weekend. Tim tried everything he could think of to get the car to shut off and finally had to resort to pulling various connections under the hood, before he succeeded.

Two hours after I set off to get gas, I began power washing. A short time later, one of my kids informs me that my other dog, a fifteen year old Cocker Spaniel named Maggie,

had done her “business” on the kitchen floor and according to my son, it was gross. I shut off the power washer to go clean up the nice “treasure” that Maggie left. When the mess was cleaned up, the power washer would not start back up. In frustration, I decided to take a break and get on the computer. Wouldn’t you know, my computer had frozen up and would not work.  I was at my wits end. Murphy was getting the best of me. My son suggested that I take a break, which I thought I was doing, but I decided to lay down for a few minutes. 

Several hours later, the power washing was done and the back yard looks great. We showed our house again for the second time to the same people and a lot of their family.  (It looks promising.) By the end of the day, Murphy had moved on.  He only tried to “move in” for a short period of time.