This is the second (and final) big essay we had to do for Advanced Grammar and Composition. It tells the unfortunately true tale of February 17, 2005. Enjoy!

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Murphy’s law states, “Anything that can go wrong, will.” I’ve witnessed this law in action many times, and it usually kicks in at the most inopportune moments. However, I’ve never seen it happen as many times in a row as it did on one fateful day: a day that has been not-so-affectionately nicknamed “Murphy’s Law Day’” by those who experienced it.

We started the day driving by driving to L-3 Communications to make a presentation about the Phoenix Project. The Phoenix Project was a senior design project with the goal of creating an autonomous helicopter, and I was on the programming team. Because each of the helicopters we purchased cost several thousand dollars, we had to raise funds from large businesses. L-3 Communications is one of the largest military contractors in the country, and we had several contacts within the company, so we hoped they would be willing to give us poor college students a few thousand dollars.

On the way to the presentation, the lead car accidentally decided to take a “short cut” along a dirt road that cut through some farm fields. Because the weather had been rainy the last few days, there was some significant mud off the side of the road. The road was bumpy, and one of my passengers was getting sick, so I pulled over to the side to give him a brief reprieve. The team lead, who was driving the car in front of me, thought I was turning around, so he started to turn his Isuzu Rodeo around too. Here, Murphy’s Law struck for the first time: just as he got the Rodeo angled perpendicular to the road, his front tires slipped off the side and became firmly entrenched in the waiting mire.

We were going to be late if we didn’t arrive soon, and the Rodeo was carrying not only the team lead, but also our helicopter that we planned to demonstrate to top-level L-3 executives. So we tried our best to free the car quickly. However, no amount of pushing, lifting, or digging made any difference at all. The car was stuck. What made things worse is how close we had come to our destination. We could see some of the large warehouses of L-3 just across the field. With minutes until the presentation was supposed to start, we finally gave up on freeing the Rodeo. We crammed the helicopter and extra people into the remaining cars and took off.

The presentation went very well. We made a point to emphasize our need for funds to buy a backup helicopter in case ours crashed before the final competition–not that we expected anything like that to happen. After the presentation finished, we went out to a field by one of the parking lots to demonstrate of our flight technology. We got the helicopter in the air, and, to our delight, all of the electronics started communicating perfectly. But we soon discovered that Murphy was just getting started. Suddenly, the rotor began to violently gyrate back and forth–our auto-leveling system had gone haywire! Before anyone had a chance to react, the rotor smashed into the tail boom, causing it to burst into pieces and send the doomed craft hurtling to the ground.

Having sufficiently proved that we needed funding for a backup vehicle, the team left, discouraged, to try to free the lodged Rodeo again. Perhaps asking for help at this point would have been intelligent, but we were a large group of guys, many with degrees in Mechanical Engineering–we were going to free this car ourselves. On the way back to the car, we purchased a come-along (a type of winch) at a local store, thinking we could use it to pull the car out. However, when we got back, we couldn’t find a good place to anchor the come-along. Eventually, we decided to use some other straps we had in the car to tie it to a puny-looking tree. We started cranking. Either the straps or the tree looked like it had a good chance of snapping before we got the car out, so we covered all the hooks and clamps of the come-along with our jackets, hoping that if the heavy pieces of metal went flying, the blow would be somewhat softened.

After an hour or so of work, it become obvious that there was no way we could get the car out with the equipment we had. Luckily, we had noticed that we were close to several wrecker businesses. Problem solved, right? Not with Murphy in full swing. We went around asking to borrow a chain. I’m not sure what we planned to do with a chain, but it was better than just sitting there. Unfortunately, the sight of a group of guys dressed in nice khakis and matching Phoenix Project polo shirts didn’t inspire generosity in the hearts of the small-town wrecker shop owners. None of them would let us borrow anything.

We were on the brink of despair. A full day of work had left us with only a stuck car and thousands of dollars of damage to our helicopter. I finally remembered that my dad had signed me up for a AAA membership, and I could get a tow truck to pull us out for free. Our collective pride hurt, we decided to call in help. After we had waited for what seemed like an eternity, the tow truck finally showed up. We felt better when the wrecker’s big pickup stalled several times while it was pulling the car out.

With the car finally freed, everyone was ready to go, and I thought this failure-filled chapter of my life was finished. Naturally, Murphy had other plans. I was the last to leave the site because I had to finish up some business with the tow truck guy, so none of the other cars from the group were around when I left. As I started to drive home, I noticed something didn’t feel quite right when I used my brakes. I tried slamming on the brakes to make sure they still worked. The car only slightly slowed. I tried the hand brake. Same result. Two hours of essentially brake-free driving loomed ahead of me, but I didn’t have much of a choice but to continue.

The drive was one of the worst I’ve ever made. Driving through the towns was bad enough–I had to start braking hundreds of yards before any stop signs or stop lights. But it was even worse when I got up to highway speeds. I had to think 10 steps ahead of everything that was happening: “If he goes there and that other car goes over there, then I have to go there,” or, “If he goes there and I’m stuck over here, then I’ll have to head for the ditch,” or, my personal favorite, “If he goes there and that happens and I’m here … then I die!” Despite all this, I still made it home, two horrible hours later.

I finally got back to my room and collapsed on my chair. I resolved not to do anything else that day. Murphy wasn’t going to catch me again.