According to Wikipedia, “Chaos theory is the field of study in mathematics that studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions—a response popularly referred to as the butterfly effect.^[1]” So if a butterfly flaps her wings in Singapore today, Boston gets a hurricane a few days later. Or something like that.

I think of this today in part because the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) had not one but two or three Total Screw Ups (TFUs) yesterday, causing several of my colleagues AND several of our clients to be stuck underground in Central Square Cambridge yesterday for a Very Long Time Indeed in the morning and even more hilarity in the afternoon, both times when the humidity content of the air was about 200%, i.e., it was pouring rain like the ocean was coming at us sideways. And, yes, I got drenched both times, thank you very much. I can’t wait to see how the MBTA is going to handle winter, as the Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a winter as bad as this past year’s or worse.

So, in the interest of keeping my part of next winter relatively less stressful, I just went with my colleague Bob to get my flu shot at MIT Medical’s impressively organized Flushottapalooza (my term, not theirs). The longest part of the process was finding a pen to fill out the form. Everything else went swimmingly, which is surprising because a) I am used to things run by the MBTA and b) there was absolutely no ocean water in the building.

I know. Right?

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“Chaos Theory.” Wikipedia. 1 Oct. 2015. Web. 1 Oct. 2015.