Everyone knows Murphy's Law. Well, it is a little known fact the Murphy was actually a Scout Leader. In my continuing quest to learn more about Scouting, I have begun to locate a number of his quotations which I now offer to share with everyone. I know that Murphy travelled extensively throughout Canada, the USA, England and Australia, so if anyone has heard any of his quotations, please feel free to pass them on to me.
Scout Leaders who fail to show up at Leader's planning meetings are automatically volunteered for the next least favoured instruction or activity.
The last Scouter who quite will be held responsible for everything that goes wrong - at least until the next scouter quits.
No matter how long or hard you shop for a particular piece of camping gear, immediately after you've bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of time, planning, material acquisition, skill testing and training, <Scouts/Cubs> will invariably do as they dang well please.
The time spent on consuming a camp meal is in inverse proportion to the time spent preparing it.
Any tent peg, when dropped, will fall immediately where the tent will be placed and directly underneath where you will place your sleeping bag.
Interchangeable parts aren't.
The chance of a piece of bread falling with the buttered side down, is directly proportional to the amount of mud in which you are standing.
Leakproof seals - will.
Never eat prunes when you're famished.
Following my earlier expose on the travels (and quotations) of Scouter Murphy, further evidence of his words of wisdom have been supplied through the UK's "Scouting" magazine. I've just received Decembers issue and I thought that everyone on the International Scouter Echo might be able to benefit from some of the better observations :
Matches are always at the bottom of the rucsack when you need them.
Matchboxes always open upside down, spilling the contents.
The size of the fire is inversely proportional to the need, (for example - a glimmer for cooking and a roaring inferno for the campfire singing).
The Map you bring is the wrong one, someone has just used the correct one to light the fire.
The number of tent pegs is always equal to the number of guy-ropes, less one.
There is always a rock buried where you want to drive in the tent peg.
The strength of the wind (and rain) is inversely proportional to the number of people putting up the tent.
Meals are always eaten before the Leader has time to eat.
The Leaders sausages (hot-dogs) are always the ones that fall into the fire.
Lights out, for Scouts, is defined as the time to start having fun.
The weight of rucsacks (backpacks) increases with the distance traveled.
Contents of a rucsack always increase in size when you try to repack them.
Contents of the rucsack reverse position after packing, in proportion to their urgency of need (most needed items at the bottom).
The carrier of the First Aid kit is always the furthest person away from the emergency.
The size of cuts is always greater than the biggest Band-Aid available.