Murphy loves me

Ever heard of Murphy's Law? Of course you have. Unfortunately, I have not just heard of it, it follows me around like a love-sick puppy. Examples, you say? Oh sure, here's some from just last week:

1 - After missing more days of work than I could responsibly afford the week before due to a nasty (but thankfully short-lived) stomach virus that passed through each member of my family (unfortunately, one day at a time), I planned on missing nothing this week. Then my daughter called me at work and said she broke her tooth and her mouth was bleeding. WTF? 5 hours and one very boring dentist visit later, we find that her adult molar had been stealing nutrients from the baby molar, and had been pushing it up and out, loosening it just enough that when she bit down, it started breaking chips off of the baby tooth. Apparently, a pretty common experience. However, never in my life had I heard of anything like that. And that baby tooth, the one that never has had a cavity, is so thin, you can almost see through it. Weird stuff.

2 - My husband works a seasonal job, which means he gets laid off every winter. No big deal Last year, he had kind of a weird year in that he got the job in the early spring, did the training, was laid off for a few weeks until they did their full recall in the summer, worked all summer, was laid off for a few weeks again, was sent through another training program, and then was laid off again for a few weeks in the spring. All these lay-offs kind of suck, but we plan ahead for them, based on the amount of unemployment he receives while laid off. The fist lay off was no problem at all, other than, because we had moved from a different state, we had to file with the old state for last year. So we did. Except some of his wages the year before had been earned in yet another state (we lived really close to the state line, so he worked for a construction company that did work in both states). So we had to file a claim with the other state too. Which didn't come through until 2 months after he was no longer laid off. So, they said they would just reimburse us the next time he was laid off, since it would be in a few months. We said OK. Then, when we tried to file again in the fall, they said, "oh, sorry, you can't do that, you are a resident of a different state." We said, "Duh. We told you that already, 5 months ago." Long story short, we ended up having to pay back everything he was paid the first time around, so that it could be reimbursed to us for our new home state. But they screwed up yet again because they were supposed to send part of the money to us, and part of the money to one of the other states. They sent the whole thing to us. Good for us, right? Wrong. At that point, we were broke, so we kept it, with the understanding it had to be paid back before we could file again. No big deal, we paid it back with our tax return. We didn't even bother filing for the spring layoff, it wasn't worth the effort. So here we are in the fall again. And we have been told that there is NO WAY any more screw ups can happen. Everything has been taken care of. Fantastic. So after two months off of work (unpaid, of course) due to medical leave, he finally gets laid off and we file again. And hear nothing for a month. Then we get this letter in the mail that says, "We're sorry, your check is being held to correct an overpayment to another state." ARRGGGGGHHHHH!!! So we call. And basically, get told that they have "fulfilled [their] legal obligation" and it is now up to the state that withheld the money to correct it, and it will take approximately 4 weeks for them to do so. Are you fucking kidding me? This was not our mistake to begin with. The only thing we may have done wrong was to keep the overpayment for 2 extra months because we had so many late fees to catch up on because of THEIR screw up to begin with. Sigh. I love dealing with the government.

3 - After all that, my darling husband, who is out of the state right now, attempting to move all of our crap up here that we didn't move the first time around, says to me, "Well, if anything wrong was going to happen, I'm, glad it was that. We're better prepared this year, so money-wise, we will be fine if we have to wait a month or more to get that money back." And then he invoked Murphy by saying, "At least now, I know nothing will go wrong with my trip. After this mess, nothing else bad will happen for a while." Shouldn't he know better than to say something like that by now? I mean really, in the 36 years the man has been alive, nothing good has ever happened after saying something like that. And wouldn't you know it? I get a call at 3 am on Sunday informing me that the truck he borrowed is broke down on the highway, and it will cost almost $300 to tow him to the nearest station because they have to tow the trailer also. Then, because the only service place that's open on a Sunday is a dealership, it cost over $800 to replace a part that costs $65 at a parts store. I know, because we replaced the exact same part on our car at home 3 weeks ago. He did the work, it took him 2 hours to do it. But he has never worked on that model before, and it wasn't his truck, so he wanted it done right. Sweet, but seriously expensive. And the best part? The guy he borrowed the truck from refused to pay for any of it, even though it was a part that could not possibly have been damaged by anything John did.

I really would like to know just what it is that I did in a past life that was so reprehensible that I am paid back for it a little at a time every day.