Lets create some more Murphy’s Laws, you know, “whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time…”
here’s mine for starters
if you get snow tires installed on your car, it won’t snow
and the corrolary;
if you decide to take a chance this season and not put snow tires on your car, it will snow, in fact it will be a blizzard
if the other reason you put snow tires on is that the weather is getting cold and wet and condusive to snowfall, as soon as the snows are installed, it will get nice and warm…
however…snow tires may grant you the temporary conditional ability to make it snow…, all you need to do is step outside and say “i’m taking my snow tires off”, then it should snow
what other unofficial murphy’s laws have you encountered
Last year my bus driver bought a snow blower. I thanked him for ensuring that we’d get no snow, and said I’d split the cost of the snowblower with him if it didn’t snow all season.
Of course, it did eventually snow, but there was a while there where I was sweating over my promise
If I wash my car, it will rain.
If I mow the lawn, it will rain.
If I forget to water the garden, it won’t rain.
If I wash my car, but forget to water my garden, the toast will land butter side up.
[hijack]
My FIL’s favorite experiment:
Take one healthy cat and attach a piece of toast to its back.
Butter the side of the toast that is not against the cat.
Pick up cat, hold sideways and drop from a 5 foot height.
Which way will it land?
Cats always land on their feet!
Toast always lands butter side down!
Thus a basic law will have to be broken.
Disclaimer: he has never actually tried this, but not for fear of harming the cat, for fear of destroying the fabric of space.
The year my husband bought a snow blower (the year after we got several feet of snow), we got a couple of inches, total, for the whole winter.
The following year, we got a massive blizzard, so Murphy forgot about our snow blower.
When I lived in L.A. the power would go out at least once every rainy season. I bought a Coleman lantern. The power went out once after that (not including the Northridge quake) and came back on in the time it took me to stand up to light the lantern (which was hanging from an old swag lamp hook).
I remember too many funny but true ones to create them, so (hijack):
[ul]
[li]A part will fall where it will do the most harm[/li][li]If a kit requires n parts, it will arrive with (n-1)[/li][li]A $400 picture tube will blow out first, thus protecting a 50 cent fuse[/li][li]The importance of a tool is directly proportional to its distance from the work site[/li][/ul]
Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.
If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull
the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling
the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again.
Flying isn’t dangerous. Crashing is what’s dangerous.
It’s always better to be down here wishing you were up there than
up there wishing you were down here.
The ONLY time you have too much fuel is when you’re on fire.
The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to
keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot
start sweating.
When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided
with the sky.
A ‘good’ landing is one from which you can walk away. A ‘great’
landing is one after which they can use the plane again.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won’t live long enough to
make all of them yourself.
You know you’ve landed with the wheels up if it takes full power
to taxi to the ramp.
The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the
angle of arrival. Large angle of arrival, small probability of
survival and vice versa.
Never let an aircraft take you somewhere your brain didn’t get
to five minutes earlier.
Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking
about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction.
Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide
out in clouds.
Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the
number of take offs you’ve made.
There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing.
Unfortunately no one knows what they are.
You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of
experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you
empty the bag of luck.
Helicopters can’t fly; they’re just so ugly the earth repels
them.
If all you can see out of the window is ground that’s going
round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the
passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.
In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going
hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour,
the ground has yet to lose.
Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, the
experience usually comes from bad judgment.
It’s always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as
much as possible.
The year after the massive snowstorm I bought big Kodiak Sorell boots. The next winter I walked home 5 kms in the rain on December 24th. The year after that was a moderate winter. I moved to Vancouver, and always brought the boots along on ski outing trips. Seldom wore the things. I needed them the year I was pregnant. My feet were too swollen to wear the things. And so it goes. 9 years old these boots are, and just barely broken in.
I have always found that whenever I place a plastic bag full of groceries on the floor (e.g. to open the door to the house when I arrive back from Sainsbury’s), it will always fall in the opposite direction from that which I had anticipated, scientifically based on the size, shape and disposition of the various articles therein. This is especially true if the bag contains a 2-litre bottle of fizzy soft drink, which will be so shaken up by its violent impact on the floor that it will be 4 week before it can be safely opened.
