I want to tell you a little story about Murphy. You see, Karma might be a bitch, but Murphy is a downright bastard. He comes along and tries to mess up all the best laid plans of mice and men (women too!) This is the story about how I beat Murphy at his little game and will continue to do so at every opportunity.

I had a date with a man that I had been seeing for a few weeks. The man in question was a total dream. Tall, dark, Italian, and sexy as sin. My goal for the day was to spend the day with him, getting to know him better, and for him to get to know more about me. That’s it.

It turned out to be the BEST date in my dating history. It was also the WORST. Now you may want to know how a date can be both the BEST and WORST at the same time? Well, I will tell you. Murphy showed up and brought his Law with him, but I brought my attitude! I was not gonna let that little punk get the best of me.

The day started with my date picking me up for a fun filled day on his boat. We were going to spend the day on the river, tubing and swimming. The weather forecast was for a sunny , 90 degree weather. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was perfect! I donned my bikini, packed us both a lunch, and off we went. We got in the boat and started down the river, enjoying the sights. There were sailboats and cruise ships and we had quite a few discussions along the way. Apparently, he was enjoying the sights along the way too, one of which was my cleavage. While he was perusing my assets, he failed to notice a tug boat pass. Now I don’t know if any of you realize this, but tug boats create a fairly good size wake. He didn’t notice that either.
Here we were, going along at a fairly good clip and then he realizes that we are about the hit the wake. HOLY SHIT! I have two seconds to grab on before the boat is airborne! I’m holding on with one arm, looking like Tinkerbell, flying! Then it’s back to reality and damn, what a hit! We bounced about 3 times and he quickly motored back. In the meantime, the bumpy landing caused me to hit my arm on the steering column, and my hip on the side of the boat. By time he got the boat under control and to a halt, I was on the deck, holding my arm, because I seriously thought it was broke, and trying to catch my breath. We both looked at each other and he asked if I was ok. What did I say to him? “Dude, if you didn’t want another date, all you had to do was say so! You didn’t need to try to make fish bait out of me! Jeez!” He laughed, helped me up and got ice for my arm and hip. “You’ll do,” he said.

The day progressed and we were having such fun. We laughed and flirted and headed for a little cove to anchor and swim. Silly us, we were so wrapped up with all the flirting that we didn’t even notice the clouds approaching until it started raining. Now, I’m not talking a little shower here, people. I’m talking deluge. The great monsoon! One minute I’m standing there, looking oh so cute, in my little bikini with my hair all done, and the next, I look like a drowned rat! Murphy has conspired against me! He took one look at me and struggled not to smirk. So what was I to do? I was freezing! It was pouring rain and I was cold. I jumped in the river. WTF! I was already wet, right? And since the boat didn’t have a canopy, there was no shelter to be found ON the boat, I figured the next best place was UNDER it, more specifically the bow. Besides, the water in the river was considerably warmer than that which was falling from the sky.

We played in the river, in the rain and he told me that couldn’t believe that I wasn’t freaking out about my hair getting messed up from the rain and the day being ruined. I told him that in all honesty, if we were going to be swimming, my hair would have gotten wet at some point, so why get bent about it.

We ate our lunch on the deck of the boat under a tarp. Not exactly the most romantic of settings, but then again, it kind of was. After all, it was just he and I, in our own little world. He mentioned the other incident with the tug boat. After all, the day had not exactly gone according to plan. Nope, it sure hadn’t. But in a way, it had, because I had planned to spend the day him. I accomplished my goal.

I had a great relationship with this man for a number of years. He later told me that if I had thrown a hissy fit over the little things, such as my hair getting messed up, he would never have gone out with me again, because he wanted a real woman who could handle life’s ups and downs. The fact that I could laugh at the situation and myself endeared me to him. It also gave us both great memories that I will always treasure.

The moral of the story is that you can plan who you want to be with, but not what life will throw at you on any given day. Sometimes you just need to be able to roll with the punches. If you sweat the small stuff, you may just let a great person pass you by.

Murphy might try to throw a monkey wrench into your plans, but he only wins if you let him.

I wrote this post a few years ago for another forum.  I am adding it here for content.