Sometimes, no matter what you do, everything just goes wrong. It's one of those Murphy's Law things that haunts the human race, and has since the beginning of time. I believe the adage is "What can go wrong, will go wrong, at the worst possible moment."
It's like the time I had a marine engine apart in the bilge of a boat. Here I was contorted and bent over like one of those straws they sell, that propels the milk through loops to entertain your kid before they dribble it all over the floor, trying to check the cylinders of a 454 Mercruiser Blue Water Marine engine. Man, it was hot and if only I could get this one cylinder loose, I could get the engine back together and not have to have it pulled from the boat at great expense. But, as you know by now, Murphy's Law prevailed. The one cylinder didn't come loose; I spent about an hour fishing a wayward plastic "straw" from a can of WD-40 that dropped through the hole in the block (if I had known the engine had to come out, this would have not even been cared about!) and cut and scraped and feeling about a hundred years old climbed out on deck to curse the engine gods.
What made matters worse is that I had bought the used boat about 60 days earlier and the seller had a boat yard attend to the matter. They thought it was fixed, I thought it was fixed, and the boat ran well, so there was no extended warranty on the engine. That was an $8000 lesson in marine economics. But that was lesson three.
Lesson one in Murphy's law is that you have no idea how expensive and complicated things will be until the government gets involved.
Suffice it to say I had a fuel leak on a boat and fortunately, being a safety freak, did not have a fire or explosion. A good friend came down and assisted me in removing the fuel from the damaged tank, the boat bilge and even the local fire department were good guys in helping spray some foam to keep the vapors down while we cleaned it up. Then the proverbial crap hit the fans....
The Coast Guard who declined to respond, and the Harbor Patrol, who also declined to respond, decided to contact the Hazardous Materials people who decided to respond almost 24 hours later, while there was about a quart of fuel still left in the vessel. They were rude, unpleasant and, frankly, damned ugly toward us, giving us orders and acting like the Gestapo. In the end, it cost me hundreds of dollars to take the tainted fuel to a disposal facility (we were going to give it to a guy who could have burned it in an old truck but the HazMat people insisted it had to go to a certain place where it could be traced) and to add insult to injury, they tried to fine me and charge me for their unwanted and unneeded response. Even the OSC (on-scene commander) which was the local fire department agreed they were not needed. I fought both and won, since my background covers their field pretty thoroughly, but it goes to show that when you're up to your butt in alligators and trying to drain the swamp, someone will decide to kick you in the butt and shove you deeper in the swamp and add more alligators!
Lesson two was another fuel tank leak on another vessel (I don't have good luck with fuel tanks...is God trying to tell me something? Hell, I had better luck with Napalm canisters..or..maybe not as I remember all those leakers I had to wrap with det cord...ahh...that was in another world far away) But I digress here. This tank was installed incorrectly by the manufacturer and failed all required specifications, but they refused to accept a claim for repair. Their stance was that the warranty had expired and even though there was property damage, the statute of limitations had run out, so I couldn't collect anything. However, had the boat exploded and I been maimed or killed, the statute of limitations would still be running and I or my survivors would have a case. Isn't that nice? It cost me $5000 to pull the engine and replace the entire tank with a new one.
So, I don't get mad; I get even. Through my contacts I found that about half the workforce at their plant was illegal alien workers. So, a few phone calls to the right people and somehow they were raided by the INS and approximately 300 people were arrested. My understanding is that the shutdown and slowdown in production cost them about a million bucks! In my mind, Murphy's Law worked just right that time. At the worst possible moment..payback is a bit*h!
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