Bertha's Byword explains things

Murphy’s Law is most often stated this way: “If something can go wrong, it will.” Some people take their Murphy’s seriously. There are studies which have tried to prove whether Murphy’s has basis in fact. Well, duh. This is the way Bertha states Murphy’s. There are at least 50 ways to get something wrong and only one way to get it right. So mathematically it’s a wonder anything ever comes out right. Maybe it doesn’t, and we just don’t know it.

When you stop to think about it, Murphy has just about got life explained. Every law governing or trying to unravel life as we know it pretty much falls into a sub-category of Murphy’s.

I want to propose a variation on Murphy’s. We can call it Bertha’s Byword. If someone already has a patent on it, I didn’t know, okay?

It goes like this: If you had two choices, you will invariably wish you had made the other one.

For example—say you have a Saturday afternoon in the late fall when the chores are done and you have some money. (That in and of itself is a set of circumstances that ought to make you extremely wary.)

You also have some friends going skiing and some more friends going to catch the college football game. Don’t mess it up now. These are two pretty good choices.

So if you choose skiing, the chair lift will be broken (best-case scenario,) and additionally, your team will pass for 300 yards and win by 35 points.

Conversely, if you choose football…the scenario could get really bad here. Just how many ways are there for a football game to go wrong?

Turning to the business arena, I was one of those investors who put money into Putnam Group instead of Wal-Mart. You can already guess how that turned out. If I had done it the other way around, I probably could have averted the global economic crisis.

Which brings me to my other real-life story. My daughter and her husband own a reception center in Logan. It has a really nice audio system which sounds great, but it doesn’t have a piano. After three brides in a row had asked about a piano and someone else had wanted to book the facilities for an upscale piano recital, they started looking for a piano. A friend helped them find just the right instrument. It was a gloss black Steinway baby grand which was going for a good price. The good price was $26,000.

So they thought long and hard about that purchase. (My son-in-law as well lives by Bertha’s Byword. He didn’t patent it though.) Would they really book that many more receptions with the piano in the big room? Their friend assured them that they could rent it out for rehearsals at $150 an hour to piano students from the university. So that helped tip the scale. They bought the piano last week. The piano dealer would arrange the financing.

And so the Baby was delivered. They couldn’t wait for the next walk-through. The bride would probably book on the spot.

The next three brides to walk through the facility glowered when they saw the piano.

“Is that piano going to be there? It takes up too much room. I have 18 people in my line. Is there a place to move it to?” From then on, my daughter who weighs 121 pounds, began trying to stand in front of the piano in an effort to hide it.

Well, just like the masked rider on the white horse, the global economic crisis (which I was a little bit glad I didn’t avert) comes to the rescue. Who would have thought? The piano dealer called this week to say that he would have to come and get the piano because he couldn’t get financing for it.

On a Saturday afternoon when I have a choice, I sometimes have a seat to watch a few downs of football on TV (which is about as close to a college game as I ever get) instead of doing the other thing which probably involves some kind of housework. Every time I sit down, my team fumbles the ball. I never get to watch them win until the reruns, and even then I worry.