If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans

“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans” is a proverb the bank robber’s mother often repeats, and a phrase that links the robber’s adult story to her childhood. In the retrospective account, it is less a clever observation about plans than an early lesson in uncertainty: life can turn in many directions, and often goes wrong.

The Proverb in Childhood

The bank robber is seven the first time her mother says the proverb. The child understands its bleak implication even before she can fully grasp the circumstances that give it weight. Her mother dislikes making plans and says she does not intend to get drunk, yet drinks too often for the child to see that as coincidence. The girl vows never to drink hard liquor and never to become an adult; she keeps half of that promise.

The proverb sits beside another lesson, learned just before Christmas Eve. The child has spent a month after school selling Christmas magazine editions and given the earnings to her mother to buy food for Christmas. Her mother, distressed and asking not to be blamed, tells her that she should not have handed over the money. The child’s experience gives the saying a painful shape: trust and good intentions do not ensure that events will turn out as hoped.

From General Saying to Personal Meaning

The narrative connects the proverb to the bank robber’s later circumstances by moving from the childhood recollection to her arrival at an apartment viewing ten years later. The phrase’s reach is therefore both intimate and structural: it belongs to the family history that precedes the adult crisis, while its warning about plans and reversals echoes the uncertainty surrounding the larger hostage drama.

The surrounding story places the proverb near the idea of moral hazard, but the childhood episode gives that idea a personal rather than financial register. The child is not responsible for what her mother does with the money; nevertheless, the mother’s appeal to misplaced trust leaves the child with a distorted burden of blame. The proverb’s irony lies in how little control a person may have over what follows a plan—or over the decisions of someone trusted.

An Echo in the Crisis

During the hostage crisis, Jack draws on his active-listening training while trying to find a way to contact the bank robber. He hesitates over sending his father, Jim, toward the apartment when the apparent bomb has not been confirmed as harmless, and seeks a view into the building from across the street. The crisis also prompts discussion of familiar negotiation advice: avoid negative phrasing, find common ground, and learn the hostage taker’s motivation. These scenes do not repeat the proverb, but they place careful planning beside the limits of certainty that the saying expresses.

When the bank robber asks why a police officer would help her, Jim answers by recalling his late wife’s saying about planting an apple tree even if the world were going to hell the next day. Set beside the mother’s proverb, that answer offers a contrasting response to an unpredictable future: one saying emphasizes how plans can fail, while the other supports taking a constructive action despite uncertainty. The contrast does not cancel the childhood lesson; it shows how the story can hold caution and care together.