The Murphy's Laws of Weekends

1. There will be a gunshot/low-flying aircraft/backfiring car/firework/some sort of sudden, loud noise that will wake you up as soon as you start to drowse on Friday nights. Your husband will then feel inclined to look out every window, watch the news, see if our little part of New Hampshire is on the internet, and otherwise figure out what caused the noise. He will not be successful, continuing to ask rhetorically all night and into the next morning, "I wonder what that noise was?" and "The dog was very skittish all night."

2. Even though you could conceivably sleep in past 5:30, you're awake by six. You lay in bed looking at the alarm clock (you've already turned off the alarm) until it reads 6:30, the time you actually physically leave for work. With a sigh, you get up and head downstairs. And feed the dog and cat, let the dog out, turn the heat up, and reflect that these are all chores someone else does during the week--and would have done this morning if you could have just slept in past six.

3. It's common to forget the power cord from your laptop at work. This is especially true when you're working on something very intense (working on a novel that you've had writer's block on for months, in my case) and your laptop starts flashing you the, "Battery power is about to fail" message. This is even more so when your at-home desktop has had a nervous breakdown and won't even turn on. There is always the dreaded "family computer", of course, but that means you have to leave not just your warm bedroom but also your warm bed and go down to where the heat has already been turned down and your husband is watching a really bad movie on the SciFi Channel and you'll never get your writing groove back.

4. You have two drinks when you go to laugh at your husband for being a crappy bowler at a company fundraiser. You then have another drink when you go out to dinner. However, for some reason, you still think it's a smart idea for some reason to take an Ambien. The strange dreams showing up as a result are kind of life-scarring.

5. You're going out with the ladies on Saturday night, but it's to an event with the word "Mullet" in it. You aren't sure if that means you're supposed to break out the '80s attire or just come as you are. You know that you're going to do internet research to figure this out, and you wish you could just let it go sometimes--you do not have to be perfect.

There's my top five ... what do you think? Please add your own, because everyone, I'm sure, sees this differently.