on why even i would never sit down for a cup of mango green tea with Murphy:

to those that sometimes refer to me as a
pessimist
maybe one who is cynical
maybe one who
sees
the
wrong
side
of
the
train
wreck
at times when we should be dancing amongst the petunias
or perhaps
counting all those rosebuds while we may
actually
be drifting into quiet indifference, abeyance & ultimately,
extinction---
i offer up to the jury the man
who most certainly
must have been
the most pessimistic, cynical, wrong-side-of-the-train wreck-seeing
motherfucker
this side of the san andreas---
entering at stage left---
mr. edward aloysius murphy, jr.

as an aerospace engineer,
no doubt, bitter from having served in the US military for 12 years---
(service to a country that bore a hole through his own place of birth &
occupied it thereafter for 76 years)
and as a research & development drone at
wright-patterson
in 47’
he came up with some kind of theory which relied on anticipating
the worst &
always assuming that wrong-end-of-the-train-wreck
to occur
first.

apparently
his theory wasn’t taken as seriously as he wanted it to be
as far as his interpretations of defense design went,
and he struggled the rest of his life trying to make those involved,
respect it appropriately.

but alas, he made no headway in the venture & died 1990---
72 years and 187 days of looking for the worst to happen,
thinking that nothing but the worst
will happen,
and having his own life pay out in full,
considering this prospect.

yeah, i would have to say that tea with the man who coined
“anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”
would be something like
depression defined through action---and it is something i would avoid at any cost.

luckily for us, the old bastard is dead---
so onward we go, looking for those roses & petunias.