What hath Murphy’s Law wrought?

 

            Seven years ago, after a successful 150-year run, Western Union sent the last telegram in U.S. history. The first telegram, sent by Samuel Morse famously read: “What hath God wrought?”

 

            On July 14, India’s state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited will send the world’s last telegram. I don’t know what it will say, but “God hath wrought text messaging” is my suggestion.

 

            Or, perhaps, Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. STOP.”

 

            Woody’s Law, meanwhile – one of them, anyway – states that when something expensive breaks it will occur a few weeks after the warranty expired.

 

            Perhaps even more frustrating, and more frequent, is when something still under warranty breaks I will have lost the warranty form, sales receipt, original packaging or whatever else the company in question demands in order to honor its contract.

 

            Such was the case a couple days ago when a seven-year-old mattress guaranteed for 20 years suddenly turned as soggy as mashed potatoes. Couldn’t the company at least pay for my visit to the chiropractor to have my wrenched back adjusted?

 

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            Other people had worse encounters this week with Mr. Murphy. Marissa Powell, for example.

 

Asked a question about women in America earning less pay than men for equal work, Miss Utah USA’s train of thought derailed like an Amtrak in a hurricane; her eyes seemed to spin like the colored pinwheel when a computer freezes; and when her mind finally rebooted her response included: “We need to see how to . . . (panicked pause) . . . create education better.”

 

            Not the most stellar answer in pageant history, but Rick Perry, for one, better not be laughing at her expense. I mean at least she was running for Miss USA and not President USA.

 

            Mr. Woodburn certainly is not laughing at Miss Utah. I have the luxury of reading over, re-writing and editing my words before they go to print for public scrutiny and still I often seem to need “education better.”

 

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            Speaking of spinning rainbow pinwheels, another of Woody’s Laws is that your computer will freeze up right before you decide to save two hours worth of work.

 

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            Sometimes, thankfully, Murphy’s Law takes a punch on the nose.

 

            Ventura College gets many things wrong, from cutting popular classes to locking the running track from public use, but it got it totally right and set a lofty example for all California community colleges – in fact, all universities – by recently inducting Beck Santillan Hull into the VC Athletic Hall of Fame. She became the first in her position ever honored by a California school. Let’s hope she is not the last.

 

            Hull did not make headlines by swinging a tennis racket or golf club or swishing 3-pointers. Rather, she was an athletic-specific counselor who made sure Pirate athletes hit the books as hard as the weights and excelled in the classroom so they would be eligible for the playing fields and courts.

 

The life lessons Hull instilled over her 28-year career at VC will have a positive impact on the lives of student-athletes – “my kids” she affectionately called them – long after their newspaper sports clippings have yellowed with age.

 

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The CIF-Southern Section, meanwhile, suffered brain-freeze when it named Rio Mesa/Thousand Oaks high product Marion Jones to its “100 Greatest Athletes” list.

 

Including the disgraced sprinter who was stripped of her Olympic medals for using performance-enhancing drugs is shameful. If she cheated on the world stage, why should we believe she ran clean in high school?

 

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            Sometimes I get the last laugh on Woody’s Laws. Such as midweek when our three-year-old hot-water tank burst.

 

            Sure, it happened at nighttime when a plumber would charge extra to come out – but it didn’t happen while we were gone so that the garage would have become a Great Lake instead of merely a pond before being discovered.

 

            And, of course, I couldn’t find the 10-year warranty – but our plumber had it on file so no worries!

 

            Well, one: the manufacturer has since “improved” the model and hit us with an “upgrade fee.”

 

Murphy’s Law gets the last laugh. STOP.

 

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Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for the Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. His new memoir WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” is available for pre-order at: www.WoodyWoodburn.com