Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for May 22, 2020

Would it be Newtonian if the person ahead of you in line was buying Fig Newtons™️?

An offshoot of Murphy’s Law.

And that person will only start looking at the menu and deciding what they want once they get to the front of the line.

Force needs to be applied to increase the velocity of that person moving through the line.

And wear a hat .

(Sigh) I sure miss the crocs. I even miss Guard Duck.

Or you think she’s almost done, but there is some kind of dispute or question that requires a manager and nobody can find the manager.

Not Newtonian, but accurate.

There is Newton scrambled wenton aa a beatdown of externals rattifiedfor eternal frustration for goat.

Rat why are you in a hurry to go nowhere ? … Croc Power !

Observational bias and a poor understanding of statistics. Or Karma, Rat.

If you leave late for work, every traffic light will be red and every other driver will be at least 80 years old and driving at half the speed limit. If you leave early for work absolutely none of this happens.

…any delay during check-out, is compounded by miscommunication through face Masks!

I can pretty much count on this one. It happens every time I don’t use the self-checkout (which has its own maddening issues).

Isn’t Calculus (not a big fan) his real big contribution?

What was the total? Let me get out my checkbook. What day is it? What was the total again? My pen isn’t working…

I am always behind the person who drops a penny on the floor. As I watch it roll out of sight, I know my ice cream will thaw before that penny is found!

Ain’t that the truth

Common pet peeves are all Murphy law related; if you are hungry at a fast food outlet and the line is long the person in front of you will take forever to order with numerous obtuse questions and then when they get their food will find fault so that you have to wait even longer and the line at a drive through can be even worse when someone refuses to leave the pick up window until their order is correct while you are waiting right behind them….. At the grocer, similar scenario, someone right in front off you will dispute a price or have an item which requires a price check where the bag boy takes an eon to find the price and then if you are having a particularly bad day the cashiers change shifts so the manager pulls the till and the new cashier meticulously takes their time getting set up, simply a fact of life but if you are not in a hurry expect smooth sailing……… Waiting at the ATM can also be an experience if one is in a hurry, the machine runs out of money right before your turn sending you to the back of other lines or the guy in front of you goes through a half dozen cards which are maxed out……….

…And have three credit cards declined for insufficient funds.

Went to the drive thru at the bank. The car in front decided to put on a show. Driver(D), front passenger(FP) and rear passenger(RP). FP shouts to the teller, box opens and D takes slip. D gives slip to FP. FP fills out slip and passes it to RP. RP passes back to FP and FP gives to D to give to teller. I guess they wanted everyone to handle it!! Then FP is shouting to teller again and box opens. D takes a slip, and we get an encore!!! I had nowhere to go and was listening to the radio in fascination at the performance. Luckily there was only ONE encore. My transaction took about 30 seconds as I am a lousy performance artist.

“The amount of time it takes for the first driver in a line of traffic at a stop light to notice the light has changed to green is directly proportional to the number of cars in the line and inversely proportional to the patience of the driver of the second car in line.”

don’t forget the coupons of which a goodly portion have expired.

Haww, that law was from was Isaac’s Irish cousin, Seanus Murphy.

At the grocery store, the person in line questions a price, they have to get the manager, and then when that is settled they pay with a check they then proceed to write!

No, no, it’s usually some rich blue blood who wants to dispute the price of every item, and then insists on paying with a personal check.

There’s always someone in front of me at the grocer who waits until the entire bill is rung up before pulling out their wallet/purse to insert the card or (infrequently) write a check.

I’m sorry, but I have tried to break my wife of the habit of digging in her purse for exact change for 45 years.

There’s a story that back in the ‘80s, when Bill Gates was already rich, he went to the store one day to buy a pint of ice cream. He stood at the check-out for several minutes as he fumbled through all his pockets. "I’m sure I had a 25¢ coupon here somewhere." Finally a big, burly guy standing behind him tossed a quarter on the counter and said, “Here, big shot, now get out of the way.”

Don’t forget about getting in line behind the fully loaded grocery cart with 2 DIFFERENT ORDERS that have to be sorted out before being paid for separately, so grandma has to make sure HER stuff is paid for separately from the rest of the order… and she writes a check… as does her daughter…

“Exact Change”….

Here’s some gravity: A bunch of stuff on a shelf falling on you.

…or hold up the line with 15 coupons and a credit card….

I don’t have to be in a hurry……any line that I pick will turn into the slowest one.

Here’s another one: No matter which check out line you get into, it will end up being the slowest one of them all.

With coupons too.

My own natural law discovery: A tail wind never helps as much as a head wind hinders.

The person in front of you will seem surprised that they have actually to pay for their groceries and start looking for their purse for a debit card.

Newton also was tasked to run the royal mint and to seek a way to prevent counterfeiting of coins.

When you play golf, you get behind the Galapagos foursome.

In the Dark Ages, before register scanners, Readers Digest (an actual print magazine) had a story about someone in a checkout line (pre-Corona virus, no social distancing) and two customers in front of that person a shopper had an item that had no price sticker (remember those impossible to remove items?). The clerk picked up their mike (no headset) and asked for a price check. The person needing the price check bemoaned, " Why is it that if there is only one item on the shelf that has no price sticker, that is the one I’ll pick up?" and the person next to them said, “Yes, and how is it that I am always next in line to you?”

Not a Newtonian Law, a Murphy Law. My late brother had a theory about groups of people who get in other people’s way and screw things up. A petty version of the Illuminati. Grocery lines, traffic jams, restaurants and fast food places, etc. He called them the Anti-Destination League. The Karen Division is the absolute worst!

She’s the same person who leaves her unattended cart right in front of the item you need from the shelf

Doesn’t that mean that if everyone in a ten-person line is in a hurry, then the first person has an order 9765625 times more complex than the person in the back of the line? (Math, kids.)

In Britain they call it “Sod’s Law”.

It may not be Newtonian but it sure is Universal! The very thing happens in supermarkets all over the world.

I have this happen almost every time I’m at the grocery store – usually, when I’m in a hurry – there’s no difference between a Publix in Florida or a SuperMaxi in Ecuador.

And ask to speak to a manager.

On days when the world seems that way, self-isolating is the cure-

Good thing Rat doesn’t normally carry firearms.

or write a check

Me too! Word was not helpful!

The apple couldn’t hit Sir Isaac hard enough for him to imagine our world now. (I know that story is likely apocryphal. Let me have this one.)

It’s still just a corollary of Murphy’s Law.

“Rat’s Law” may be more immutable than Newtonian physics! It happens to me every time I go grocery shopping (or nearly so)….

I think Rat is confusing Isaac Newton with Murphy’s Law.

And will have coupons and the register tape will need to be replaced. Everyone knows when you try and get in the short line, it will always go slower than the longer line which checks out 7 people before you get checked out.

and have Coupons

If I need to grab something out of a bag while driving but do not want to fumble while in motion, I will hit all the lights green and never get that bottle of water that rolled too far on the passenger side floor.