Ponderous Simplicity

Some might call  her Karma - but regardless of her name, sometimes she makes like interesting. Murphy's Law is pretty well known and I know I've cursed this law many a time - because there are periods in life when if something can go wrong it will and does. But his sister's law seems to happen more frequently and in a sneakier manner. What is this law I speak of?

I googled (it often kills me these days what we take nouns and make them verbs, but I still do it), to see if there was another accepted law connected to Murphy's Law but couldn't find anything. I also googled karma to find out a more precise definition. Too often I hear words thrown around that I think the majority of the population really only has a vague idea of what the word means, but they still use it, but that is a discussion for another post. The definitions of karma are mainly dependent on religion, but for the sake of this post I'm going with, what you send out is what you receive.

Where I've seen this happen, and the situations I now dub with Karma's Law or Murphy's Sister is if you say, "This _______ has never happened to me" then inevitably a short time later, the thing you just gloated about having never had happen will happen. Usually it is little things, but always things you are GLAD have never happened to you.

For example, just last week, I was discussing the parking situation at my current place of residence. I live in a group of townhomes, all of which have two car garages, plus 3 additionally parking spots in the cul-de-sac area that are free game for whomever parks there first. So I was remarking on how I had never had to park out on the street as I had always arrived home to find one of the 3 additional spots available.

But you will never guess what happened the next day!?!?! Yep - I arrived home to find all 3 of the spots full and with lots of joy I got to park my car on the street. Now of course this isn't the end of the world, as it simply means I had to walk a little further and worry a little that since we live at the base of a hill someone might come over the hill not paying attention and hit my car.

It is the irony that kills me - that it seemed simply because I had said it NEVER had happened, it happened the exact next day and the exact thing I had mentioned. And it doesn't seem to happen with good things - I was discussing this issue with my roommate and we both agreed that saying something you wanted never happened doesn't cause that thing to happen. So me saying, "I never win a million dollars!" does not somehow have me win the lottery the next day or have a rich relative die and leave me a million.

So Murphy's sister, I've got my eye on you.