"You can sit around at home till Doomsday and the prices at the pumps will stay fairly low, incessantly tempting you to travel. But the moment you decide to take off somewhere and head out on your trip, the price for a gallon of gas will go right through the roof!"
Gas-prices seemed fairly "stable" all summer, and so I delayed a road-trip for a while to "save up" or "accumulate" a number of errands so that hopefully my trip would be more cost-effective with regards to gas-consumption, but then when I stopped to fill up my tank in the morning when I was first heading out, the price had suddenly jumped over a quarter higher per gallon! Sounds like a classic case of "Murphy's Law of Gasoline Prices" to me!
by QuacksO September 12, 2019
"You can hold onto something for decades, and neither you nor anyone else will ever have a use for it, but then just as soon as you throw it out, either you will suddenly need it for something, or --- even more 'painful' --- **someone else** will come to you and humbly ask, 'Do you happen to have an extra ___?'" Rrrrrggggghhhhh----!!!
I'd had a couple of old 55-gallon oil-drums stashed in da garage for da past thirty years --- my grampa had given 'em to me when he and Gram were downsizing to move into an assisted-living apartment --- and they'd just sat there and gathered dust in da corner all that time. But then just two days --- TWO STINKIN' DAYS!! --- after I'd sent 'em to da crusher for recycling, a low-income neighbor dropped by and asked me if he could have them to use as burn-barrels --- guess dat was a classic case of Murphy's Law of "Junk" at work!!
by QuacksO July 24, 2018
"If you leave your vehicle's engine running during a delay in proceeding (traffic-jam, road construction, accident-resolution, "stuck" red signal-light, etc.), you will be sitting there for many minutes, just wasting gas. The instant you turn the key off and climb out of your seat to stretch, however, THAT'S when the line of traffic will begin moving again, and thus you will have shut off your engine "for nothing", AND you will now be holding up everyone behind you while you hastily hop back into the driver's seat and re-start the engine so that you can move forward again."
I finally took da plunge and bought a second-hand Toyota Prius because I'd eventually had one too many cases of Murphy's Law of Engine-Idling Duration... the Prius automatically shuts down its power during stand-stills, and then uses its electric motor to provide instant mobility as soon as you're ready to go again.
by QuacksO October 21, 2018
"The better something tastes and/or the more filling it is, the worse it is for you." (Well, duhhh...!) Similar to when you are given a spoonful of medicinal syrup and it tastes absolutely terrible, and so you figure that it MUST be good for you. (And of course, that may indeed be true sometimes, but I wonder if a lot of times it's merely somewhat of a placebo effect --- your body just hurries up and gets well so that it doesn't hafta stomach the tortures of gagging down any more of that horrid bitter/sour elixir!)
I love rich sumptuous foods like burgers and fries, but my hippie-guru doctor put me on a diet of yucky-tasting bean sprouts and tofu --- talk about a classic case of Murphy's Law of Food-Flavor!
by QuacksO September 05, 2019
"No matter how many times that you and a smoker change places/locations while spending time together outdoors, the breeze is always gonna switch around and waft the tobacco-fumes directly past your face."
I absolutely totally love my new middle-aged lady-friend, but we both go absolutely crazy trying to avoid bothering me with the smoke whenever she needs a cigarette while we're going for a rowboat-ride or woods-trail hike --- sounds like a classic case of "Murphy's Law of Cigarette Smoke"!
by QuacksO August 02, 2018
"No matter where you stand, da breeze will invariably blow either towards you or in your face, causing you great difficulty in proceeding ahead and/or "cleanly"/effectively performing tasks dat involve/include vapors/particulates/liquids." (Think, Murphy's Law of Cigarette Smoke, or trying to bicycle someplace on a blustery day and da stiff wind keeps switching around so dat it's always hinderingly in your face --- never helpfully at your back --- both on your way to your destination AND on your way back home again!)
P.S. Oh yeah --- and don't even **consider** simply postponing outdoor activities till a "still spell" --- DAT will only mean multitudes of mosquitoes and black flies to torment you and make you WISH for a breeze!
P.S. Oh yeah --- and don't even **consider** simply postponing outdoor activities till a "still spell" --- DAT will only mean multitudes of mosquitoes and black flies to torment you and make you WISH for a breeze!
Two classic examples of da infuriating effects of Murphy's Law Of Wind-Direction would be (1) trying to water your hanging-basket plants on da front porch, but da watering-can's sprinkled droplets keep blowing backwards so dat da water both largely misses your plants and gets you soaking-wet, and (2) trying to employ toss-across collecting when gathering returnables along da highway, but having many of da thrown containers just blow right back onto your side of da road.
by QuacksO August 12, 2019
"No matter how storage-containers are arranged in a stack, the one you want will always be on the bottom, and so you'll have to move all of the others first."
Regardless of whether you arrange a stack of boxes in alphabetical/numerical order from top to bottom or bottom to top, Murphy's Law of stacked boxes will always "get you" --- i.e., da box you'll need will always be ether da first or last one, depending on which way you stacked them, and so you'll always need to take them all down to get to da one you need.
by QuacksO March 01, 2025