A highly charged piece of legislation. Introducing Medders’ Law
BOYLE’S Law. Murphy’s Law. Parkinson’s Law. So why not Medders’ Law? Boyle may have been the most famous person to come out of Waterford until the arrival of Val Doonican. But his insights into the pressure generated by gases are lost on those of us who are not chemistry graduates.
The mythical Murphy is good for a laugh, if nothing else, to assist us when we need to grin and bear. We have all had those anything-that-can-go-wrong-will- go-wrong days.
Yet it is Parkinson, humorous and practical, who scores best. His dictum ‘work expands to fill the time available for its completion’ is so unassailably true. Pithy and universally applicable, that’s just how a good law should be.
So why not Medders’ Law?...
Hermione was pacing up and down the kitchen like a very vexed cat on a very hot tin roof. Her customary beatific calm had evaporated as she exuded instead an air of pained exasperation. The cause of this uncharacteristic upset was not hard to figure out.
Hermione was suffering from a severe dose of fledgling-leaves-the-nest syndrome. Two days before, her dearest (and only) son had departed from The Manor to embark on a college course. Having not heard from our Eldrick for 48, almost 49, hours, she was now on nerve-racked tenterhooks.
Not a word had been received since she sent him off with a full suitcase and a list of helpful tips. Tips about buying the best bargains in fruit and veg. Tips about eating a good dinner before sessions at the college bar. Tips about where to find the bus stop for the coach back to Our Town.
‘I bet I know what’s happened!’ she exclaimed, pausing in her restless pacing. ‘He has run out of power.’ We all knew who the ‘ he’ was. ‘ The wretched battery in that phone of his is no good.’
Our son had been giving out before he left about his outmoded and not so smart smart-phone. He has use of a cast-off from a parent who received an upgraded model from a telecommunications company anxious to secure continued loyalty. I vetoed any move to spend hundreds of euro on an over-priced swish new replacement for Eldrick, so now I was the worst in the world.
‘How can he ring home if his battery is shot?’ Hermione somehow contrived to lace her words with acid contempt for a father so patently heartless and uncaring.
‘Or maybe he has been trying to get in touch but can’t get through,’ I responded lamely, though I considered this supremely unlikely. While he might not be scouring the city for cut-price carrots, the chances are that a young lad in a big city will find some way of filling in the time without being constantly on the line home.
‘Well, I don’t see any missed calls,’ declared the distraught mother, snatching up her phone from the kitchen table. She was quite correct – there were no missed calls showing, for the simple reason that the screen on her handset was blank. She was the one who had run out of power. And her charging cable was missing. Perhaps Eldrick took it with him to college.
So we embarked on a frantic full-scale search of the house. We found countless cables designed to fit previous models of mobile phones but not the current version. We found many cables which looked fine but which proved useless as they had loose or broken wiring. We found a drawer full of cables which looked fine and then worked fine for all of three seconds before a notice came up: ‘ This charger is not supported by this device.’ Then the screen reverted once more to sullen blankness.
In the end, we sent young Persephone out to buy a brand new charger cable, complete with a brand new plug to go with the hundreds of plugs we own already. Normal service finally resumed, Hermione powered up her phone to see that a text had arrived from the boy wonder: ‘College great craic. See you at Christmas maybe.’
He may have been joking…
Medders Law decrees that ‘No household ever has sufficient working phone charger cables to hand’. It’s true!