I have witnessed something today that made me think about Murphy’s Law and how easily it is extended to every action. Even those actions performed by children.
I was waliking the park with Maxim today, when we saw this boy who was riding a new bicycle. The boy was very proud (Lev: guess who am I talking about. OK, I’ll give you three attempts.). It turned out it was his second day on the bicycle and he was riding it very good. Without any tricks or anything, but solid – without fallings or ugly manouvers.
So, this boy was making circles around us. He was shining with delight. I complimented him on the newly acquired skill. And he started to show off. He made the face like he could ride all by himself, without any concentration or focus. He even started ringing his bell.
And that was the point where he lost control. His bike started going from left to rigth and back to left. He lost the touch of the pedals. His speed decreased, which made it even more difficult to keep the bike straight. He was about to fall on his face. Luckily, his reflexes were fast enough to jump off the bicycle and stay on his feet. The bicycle fell though. Noone was hurt.
But the look on this boy’s face was all about a question: “Why did it happen to me right now?”. It could have happened to him on any given moment in the last two days. And noone would have noticed it. And those who would notice, wouldn’t care for it long enough, and would forget immediately. But it happened exactly at the worst moment – when he was showing off.
The answer to the kid’s question is, of course, Murphy’s Law.
Little did the boy know about the worst moment though. The accident didn’t just happen when he was showing off. But the accident happened when he was showing off to a blogger. Now, the memory and humiliation of this accident will stay in the history of the Universe forever. And there is nothing he or anyone else can do about it. Because in exactly half a second I’ll press the ‘Publish’ button and within 30 seconds at least two major search engines will index this story. Oh, boy.
P.S.: Am I cruel or what?
The power of blogging.
Indeed! :)
I hope he didn’t feel any “humiliation” but pride he was able to try to show something off at the second day of bicycling. :)
Lev,
you missed my point. ;)
perhaps … but I still don’t like the word “humiliation†:)
heh heh heh :D Anyway I agree with Lev, hope he becomes a pragmatist being more happy about his success right on the second day than feeling humiliated :) !
A correction: reflections = reflexes.
And following Lev’s suggestion, embarassed might be a better word than humiliated. After all as Spiderman says ‘with great power (of blogging) comes great responsibility’ ;)
Btw I’d written something on very similar lines in a comment which I’m reproducing here… (you needn’t visit the link)
er… ok Spiderman’s uncle
er… ok it was Spiderman’s uncle who said it…
Btw rather than Murphy’s Law I think its the proverbial ‘Pride comes before a fall’ that applied to this kid! :)
Hey Sanjay,
Yup, I was trying to emphasize that kids are no different than adults in this regard. Possibly, this has something to do with human nature. ;)