Vignette 6

Murphy’s Big Ideas

Murphy is full of big ideas, but rarely do any of these ideas come to fruition.  I know this for a fact with longitudinal data to back me up. Take this morning for instance.  Brett was visiting and sat across the room with his feet up on the sofa drinking a cup of coffee, trying to wake up. We were talking about the American style versus the Kiwi style of communication.  I was laughing about how Murphy and I can ride to the store together and never once agree with anything that the other one has said.  I knew from the sound of the boots as they stepped onto the front porch who it was. “Hey Murphy, what’s up?”

 

There is always a chance that Murphy has an idea that he wants my assistance with. After so many years spent helping kids learn how to become problem solvers, Murphy flips the teacher switch on in me within seconds after his arrival. Sure enough, Murphy asks me if I can help him set up an account on Trade Me (the NZ version of EBay.) I look over at Brett who tries to plead telepathically.  The following hour I spent laboriously filling out online paperwork and beating my head against a big virtual Ricardo wall. 

 

Murphy is not connected to the Internet; therefore he has no email address.  He has no phone for that matter.  Undaunted by this mere inconvenience, he talks me into setting up a yahoo email account with his screen name; Waiheke Murphy.  He tells me that he will be able to use the account for further business ideas.  All of my feelings of gallantry begin to evaporate when I realize that he might want to use my computer each day to check his new email.  Yet far worse, he doesn’t read or write much so I might be expected to be in charge of all his business affairs.   Aaaaayyyyyy. 

 

Some people don’t know when or how to quit once they start something.  There I was jumping further and further into teacher hell while Brett sat by, watching his mother try to politely squirm her way out of an increasingly awkward situation.  I didn’t want to damage Murphy’s feelings of self worth but this was one of his ideas that I knew wasn’t on the fast track for success.  There would be no easy way out.

 

It is funny to look back now to realize that I hadn’t even thought to ask him what his big idea was before launching into this absurd exercise. I could have circumvented all the pain if I had just asked that one little question, “What do you want to sell on Trade Me, Murphy?”  No, I didn’t ask this until after I had set up new account with Trade Me and an email account for waihekeMurphy@yahoo.com.

 

I sat poised at the computer looking at the Trade Me New Account’s page. Trade Me was prompting me to reveal which sales category the new account owner’s product fell under. That’s when I finally asked the question.  “What is it you are trying to sell Murphy?” I turned to look at him for a response.  “Advice,” he proudly stated, as if he had finally been given the green light to let cat out of the bag. Well, that shut me up. Brett cringed in silent response to my grimace.

 

“Murphy I don’t think there is a category on Trade Me for advice,” I say.

“Ricardo reckons that I can charge $10 for each piece of advice I give out about how to permanently get rid of acne.  If one hundred people asked me for my advice II would make $1,000.00,” he explains.

 

I cleared my voice because I felt certain that I wouldn’t be able to speak and needed some time to stall.  I jumped into the deep end of the pool. No matter what I said now I know that Murphy won’t hear me. It will appear to him that I am tearing down his perfect opportunity for becoming rich and famous.  He has shared with me on many occasions the numerous brilliant ideas that he has come up with, only to have them be capitalized on by others. 

 

Trade Me saved me in the end. Thankfully there was no category for advice. He could blame this thwarted attempt on Trade Me and not Dumb Me. Brett saw an opportunity to extend this quirky encounter by asking Murphy, “So what was your advice?”  Murphy lowers his voice as if someone might be outside trying to steal the idea and make a profit before he gets his chance at the pie.

 

“You buy seven pillowcases and one bar of Detol soap. Each night you use a different pillowcase to sleep on after washing your face with the soap. This works every time.”  He sounded like a bad actor from one of those exercise equipment infomercials.   

 

“Murphy, if you want to save your customers some money you could tell them to buy only four pillowcases and wash them in between.”  I added feeling safe that I had been released from this tangled web. 

Murphy considered this, nodded and said, “True, true.” 

 

I sent Murphy home to figure out a way to check his email without having an internet connection.  I told him to ask Ricardo to help work out this little problem and to let me know what solution that they come up with.  Brett laughed as he watched his mother drag her ass out of the deep end of the pool and fall onto the sofa exhausted from treading water for so long.