Dear Mr. Murphy,

I just wanted to let you know that you should keep your mouth shut—I mean with all that nonsense about “Anything that can go wrong will," and all of that; if you hadn’t said anything, I don’t think my husband, Aaron, would have slipped on the ice yesterday when he went to close the garage door. After all, he was just being chivalrous—when the weather is nice, closing the garage is my job, but with me being nearly 8 months pregnant, he doesn’t want to pit my clumsiness against the slick parking lot. It was a nasty spill, too, the way he caught his hand on the edge of the front license plate as he went down—took a slice right out of the middle of his hand, he did—not to mention what it did to the license plate; nearly tore it off the frame!

And the post office—let me tell you about the post office, Mr. Murphy, since I’ve got you reading this letter now (don’t you dare put it down; you’re the one that came up with that stupid saying in the first place). The post office is only about four blocks from our house, did you know that, Mr. Murphy? Well, it is. But thanks to you, we can never remember which block it’s on. We tried three different streets yesterday before we finally found it (that was after Aaron tumbled on the ice)—three tries and an hour to find a post office located four blocks away. And you know what? My husband wasn’t a very happy camper by then (thanks a lot to you), driving all over town like we did. All we needed was a book of stamps so I could mail the bills. The bills! now that’s something else I’d like to talk to you about—but no, I’ll wait for another time. Just don’t think this is the last letter you’re getting from me, buddy.

After that there were the two little old ladies in the silver Taurus (license plate number HBB-695) careening the wrong way up the parking aisle at Wal-Mart. Did they stop when they saw the other car driving the right way down the aisle, or try to get out of the way somehow? No, they decided to take out the two pedestrians who were minding our own business, walking nonchalantly back to our silver Saturn SUV (which actually stayed where we put it this time—again, no thanks to you, Mr. Murphy). I practically had to climb into the bed of a pick-up truck parked nearby to avoid being run over (I’m eight months pregnant, Mr. Murphy, did I tell you that? It wasn’t a pretty sight). Then they clipped my already injured husband in the arm with their side mirror. Were they relatives of yours, Mr. Murphy—aunts, perhaps? or sisters? However they’re related, next time you see them, tell them to go get their eyes checked. We would have told them ourselves, but they never stopped.

When we got home, Aaron had to set up our new DSL modem for our internet. Unfortunately, he thought he was going to have to use the phone jack in the bedroom since we had not yet engineered a way to use the already occupied one in the living room. The unfortunate part about that is that we had tape over the phone jack in the bedroom because our next door neighbors smoke (think “forest fire," sir. I don’t know how they survive it), and the smell drifts into our apartment through the phone jack—no, it’s true! When he took the tape off, our entire house instantly filled with a blue haze, a juke box from somewhere off in the distance started playing Elvis hits, and complete strangers started knocking on our door, mistaking our apartment for a bar. My husband and I nearly died of smoke inhalation. It took us the entire afternoon of running the fan and the air purifier on “high" to clear out the smell (after we put the tape back over the phone jack and rigged up a way to use the one in the living room).

So I’m writing you this letter, Mr. Murphy, to give you a bit of wisdom that I learned in elementary school many years ago: unless you have something nice to say, do the world a favor and don’t say anything at all, okay?

Have a nice day,

Kari Birchler