The Laws of Magical Inconvenience

Here I define Magical Inconvenience as those inexplicable phenomena that annoy us and/or plague us usually at the most inconvenient of times. After careful scientific analysis (that is, personal experience), review of all extant literature (in the form of internet memes), and deep philosophical exploration (in the form of mentally shouting obscenities at the universe for messing things up), I have determined that these phenomena operate rather predictably through a series of natural laws.

For now, I shall only describe three. They are as follows.

1. The Law of the Missing Socks

This is the one we are all most familiar with. This is the law that states that every household, every family, and every individual right down to the suckling babe will have at least one odd sock. This law is universal for all sock wearing peoples, and you cannot escape it.

It doesn't matter if your laundry goes in with an even amount of socks. It doesn't matter if you scour your room for odd socks. It doesn't matter if you actually take the time to match your socks. Heck, it doesn't even matter if you pack and move, finding every last possible sock in the apartment while doing so, then unpack and take an inventory of each and every sock. No matter the case, you will STILL end up with a bunch of odd socks, and they will mostly be your good work socks, favorite fuzzy ones, or those that were meaningful presents. The missing ones may or may not reappear eventually, but the probability of that decreases as the time since you last saw them increases.

(To those who are endowed or will be endowed, know that this law may also apply to garments.)

Science has yet to determine why or how this happens. So far, we only know that it does. Theologians can only speculate as to what becomes of them after they disappear. Are they in heaven, or hell, or are they just stuck in purgatory? Do they get reincarnated as leggings before finally achieving enlightenment as more people wear flip flops? Do they fly to Neverland or escape to Narnia? We may never know in this life. The heathen may be tempted to say that even our Lord knoweth not the day, nor the hour that these socks go missing. Whatever the case, I like to think that they too will come forth in the Morning of the First Resurrection, glorified and perfect in a renewed, paradisaical sock drawer that shall never again taste of disorder.

2. The Law of the New Shoes

This law states that when you are shopping for new shoes, it will also not matter how carefully you shop, or how extensively you try to test them in the store by walking, jumping, or running around (yes, I was running up and down the aisles at Payless, shut up). Whatever shoes you choose, they will feel perfectly fine UNTIL you get home and take off the tag. The moment you rip off that tag is the moment that some piece of the shoe starts to rub uncomfortably against your foot with every step, and you hope it goes away as the shoe gets broken in, or as your build up calluses, whichever comes first. Or it may suddenly feel too tight on your toes, or too wide at the heels so that your feet partially fall out whenever you lift your foot up. This causes the heel of the shoe to fall and scrape against the sidewalk in this rhythmic *qwuop crrrrrsshh qwop crrrrssshh qwop crrrrrssshhh* sound. This one in particular is a big reason why I have a hard time finding suitable dress shoes that are not heels with safety hazards.

In simplified terms, the law of the new shoes is likened unto a bum, who pulls out all the stops for some lady while they're dating, but once they're married, he just stops caring and expects her to cook, clean, and bring him another beer as he lazily sits on the couch watching football.

Arguably, this law can be at least partially avoided by shopping for better quality shoes (IOW, not shopping at Payless), but when you're on a budget options remain limited.

And finally...

3. The Law of the Missing Item(s)

This law is simply thus: the moment you need a specific item is usually the moment it inexplicably disappears, even after controlling for other variables such as organization and cleanliness. For example, let's say you have somethings on hand like a spare bulb for your lizard tank, and a phillips head screwdriver. Weeks and months go by that you don't actually need these things, but they are readily available and accessible to you for when such a time comes. In fact, you see them in their proper place every day. And then when packing day comes, you explicitly remember seeing and touching them in that process. Now a few days after the move, and when things are mostly unpacked, the need arises for these two items.

You know you didn't unpack those specifically because you didn't need them, but logically you think that they're packed with the other pet supplies that were not unpacked. Nope, not there. Okay, they're in the bag that contains all of the miscellaneous items from the old dresser (which was where both items were kept before the move). Not there either. Um, ok, let's try the box in the closet, which has textbooks, scout clothes, hangers, and various other miscellaneous items. Nope. Check both of the suitcases. Nope. Both fish boxes. Nope. The slim bag with extra art papers in it? Nope. The box with extra dishes? Nope. The box of old dog toys from when I had Reuben? Nope. The orange crate? Nope. The box with sheets? Nope. The two walmart bins under the bed? Nope. The box with my paintings and wood burnings? Nope. The shoe rack? Nope. The old apartment? Nope. My new dresser? Nope. The two mini boxes on the new dresser? Nope.

Long story short, they were no where to be found, even though I literally looked every possible place they could be. And yes, this was very frustrating.

Now, I don't consider myself a mathematical expert, but I have come up with a formula associated with this law to determine the amount of time it takes to find these items.

T = (Di+fi+1)/L2

Where T is time (in hours), i the number of missing items, D is your desperation factor (how much you need/want the item), f is your frustration level, and L is your logic. From this formula, you can see that time to find the items is directly proportional to desperation times number of items plus frustration to the i+1th power, and then inversely proportional to the square of your logic. In other words, the less you need/want the item(s) plus the less frustrated you are, while also the more logical you are means you find the items sooner. Whereas, the more needed/wanted the items are and the more frustrated you are, the more time it will take to find them, sometimes even when your logic is sound.

To determine these variables are these formulas. Firstly, you will arbitrarily assign L a number between 1 and 5. The higher the better, because 5 is "I am the living Spock" whereas 1 is "I have no idea what I'm doing!"

Then you calculate f with this formula. L is your logic number, and x is your number of failed attempts to find the item(s) using said logic. In my case, that was 20 (I'm not even kidding, count the attempts in the last paragraph. I counted per each individual bag/box/suitcase I looked in, as each counts as an individual attempt).

f = (L+x)/2

I gave myself a L value of 3, because I kept retracing my steps in a logical fashion to determine where they could be using memory and process of elimination according to each compartmentalized place (packed or unpacked) that I stored my stuff in this new apartment. However, human memory and my attention to detail in moments of stress is faulty, so it is a 3. This gives me a frustration level of 11. Which is fair, because I was getting pretty frustrated!

Now D qualitatively refers to the spectrum between "Oh darn, I misplaced my pencil" to "MY WIFE IS HAVING A BABY WHERE THE CRAP ARE MY CAR KEYS??" I differentiate desperation from frustration here, because one could remain calm even in dire situations, but they are not completely unrelated either. Also, desperation may not always refer to need necessarily, as one could be super frustrated about losing their cookies, but this would still effect desperation in a sense, because a higher frustration level in either case can lead to greater desperation (assuming the person doesn't give up). As such:

D = 1/2f + i

Where i is, again, the number of missing items. So my desperation level = 7.5.

With these variables known, the time it will take me to find these missing items using this formula is:

T = ((7.5)2+112+1)/32

T= aprox. 149.55 hours or 6.23 days

So if my calculations are correct, I should find the missing bulb and screwdriver sometime towards the end of next week. If I decide to be more generous with the formula, and make the denominator 1+L^2, then it comes out closer to 5 days. Either way, it seems consistent with my luck at losing things inexplicably.

Of course, this could vary depending on how many other people are helping you look. In which case, I would modify the denominator to be p(L^2+Lp), where p is the the number of people helping you, and Lp is the sum of the logic values of those people helping you.

Moral of the story? Stay calm, be logical, and ask for help.

Or you could bypass this formula altogether, and just buy replacements/borrow someone else's. But be warned that the finer print of this law states that your missing items are very likely to turn up again after you've bought the replacements or whatever. Then you just throw your arms in the air and angrily shout: "GRRRAAAAAFLAGABABABAGAAA!!!!"

And yes, you must do it just like that.


ETA: Ok, so in order to properly account for the fact that one can be not severely frustrated in dire circumstances, I modify the D formula to be:

D= 1/2F + i - L

Again, this is where it helps to have better logic!!!  This turns my frustration level into 2.5 instead of 7.5, so now I could find the stuff in slightly less time.

Also, I switched the logic value scale, so that a 5 L is better than a 1. I realized after that this method of scaling is more consistent with my idea of having better logic to help find things.