Finagle's Corollary to Murphy's Law

You might be familiar with Murphy's Law, or the assertion that "anything that can go wrong, will." This phrase apparently originated in the field of engineering. Also, more importantly- there is no Murphy! The phrase came around about a century before its title. Everybody from some guy named Strauss to a mathematician named De Morgan tried to make it "their" law. Anyways, Finagle's Corollary (there is no Finagle either) to Murphy's Law, also called Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives goes like so: "Anything that can go wrong, will- at the worst possible moment."

On one hand, I find that this is frequently the case (I have too many examples to count). On the other hand, this is a pretty dramatically pessimistic. As a result, I don't know whether to make fun of the law or to whine about my personal experiences with it. Then again, you probably don't want to hear me whining, so I'll give you some facts about Finagle's Law instead!

The term was first used by sci-fi author John W. Campbell Jr. in the 1960s. He used the term frequently, hoping he could make it catch on (like fetch), but it never really got into the mainstream. However, it was still cool to reference Finagle's Law in the sci-fi world. For example, it was used several times by characters in Star Trek (clearly the pinnacle of science fiction).

According to Wikipedia (source extraordinaire), Finagle's Law is also related to something called Resistentialism, which is the belief that inanimate objects are out to get us. I didn't realize that that particular problem had any special name besides paranoia. Then again, I'm the sort of person who talks to my computer and attempts to coax it back to life when it crashes. I'm probably not the right person to be giving lectures about inanimate objects.

But now you too can try and make this phrase work. Next time it starts to pour as soon as you walk outside (which, given today's weather, should be any time you step outside) or your computer crashes, you can proudly reference Finagle's Corollary to Murphy's Law. And when someone looks at you with confusion, you can explain it to them and seem smart (or paranoid...its a fine line).