You have failed to fill up that bottle of “whatever” for weeks. Then at the very moment you need it most, it’s empty.

Some people may refer to what we all know as Murphy’s Law when thinking of the above situation. Murphy’s Law goes something like this: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Now, guess who, between you and someone else, is going to be the sufferer.

If you or I are working on some project that involves a small screw or nut. As we get right to the point of utilizing the screw, our fingers suddenly become like wood and we drop it. If nature wanted to abide by generous and gracious rules, the screw would land in easy sight and we could pick it up with no problem and resume our work.

Murphy’s Law comes into play and the screw hits the floor and bounces, with unbelievable agility, underneath the closest appliance or into a crevice never to be seen again!

Let’s say you or I are using our ovens for the most delicious piece of cheese toast in the history of that culinary delight. The toast is ready with bubbling cheddar and, just as we pick it up, something happens and we drop the toast. Does it land upright with the cheese a little rattled, but basically intact? Or does it land facedown covering the clean heating element of the oven with sticky, impossible to remove cheese? No need to answer, I know.

There was a real Murphy. He was a Captain Edward A. Murphy at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He was working on an Air Force project in 1949 and, in one of the tests regarding the project, a technician had wired something wrongly and caused the test to fail.

Captain Murphy had no patience with the technician and criticized him harshly, saying, “If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it.” Now with a new and modern name, this “law” of nature had actually existed from the first time a caveman had gone to the store and had to choose between two items to take back home to his cavewoman.

The dimwitted caveman thought he had a 50-50 chance of getting it right, but when he got back to the cave, Wilma said, “Fred Flintstone, if there is a way to get something wrong, you will find it.”

I had a 2013 Honda Accord for three years and drove back and forth from Archbold Hospital in Thomasville numerous times. But it wasn’t until I bought a new 2016 Honda Accord and had it a whopping three weeks that a nice, little pebble found my brand new windshield and jumped up and hit it right in the middle.

Here’s another one that has actually happened to me. I was wearing a new pair of leather Crocs (shoes). I had cooked some greens in some ham hocks and the water was greasy. After taking the greens out, I was going to pour the water out, but not down the sink. I walked outside to an obscure part of my yard to dispose of the greasy water.

I had on my new leather Crocs and as I was throwing the water, some of it splattered where? Innocently, without bother on the ground? Of course not. What harm would that have done to my brand new leather Crocs? Instead, the law of unintended consequences judged that I needed some greasy stains on my new leather Crocs. I just laughed. No need to cry over spilled grease.

Murphy’s Law: it never fails!