Murphy's Law

Those F#%!*N Maps!
By Joseph Walther


The guy went bananas! He was trying to get a new paper bag to open so he could put some stuff inside and it just wouldn’t cooperate. God, did he struggle with that bag. Finally, in a hail of profanities, he wadded the thing up in a ball and tossed it onto the checkout counter. This happened in a grocery store at the checkout in front of four witnesses. I was the closest. As Bugs Bunny would say, “Whadda whack job!”

The checkout clerk calmly picked up the wadded bag, unraveled it, opened it, and bagged the five items he had purchased. He handed her his money. She methodically counted it and placed it into the cash drawer. She handed him his change and receipt. “Thanks for shopping at Super Fresh and have a great weekend”, she told him with a pleasant smile on her face. He just mumbled something, took his bag, and walked out of the store.

I told the clerk about a similar occurrence back when I worked as a checkout clerk during my high school days. A customer did the same thing and just stormed out of the store. My boss had been observing just a few feet away. He told me that in order to control a paper bag; a person had to have an IQ higher than the paper bag.

Two weeks ago, I watched another man struggling to refold a road map. This was not one of those regular sized, 5 x 3 folding maps. This was one of those large, 8 x 5 folding maps. This means that it had eight panels in one direction and five panels in another direction. He had spread it out over the entire surface of his car’s hood. As he struggled to refold it, he became so enraged that he tore it up and threw the pieces on the ground, climbed back into his car, and drove off with tires squealing.

This sort of behavior reeks of Murphy’s Law. We all get a kick out of Murphy’s pronouncements. However, any competent psychologist can debunk, in vivid scientific detail, every one of those laws. All it takes is a thorough understanding of the human brain’s working relationship with its attached human body. Unfortunately, this kind of thing takes some time to accomplish, at least a couple of weeks. Since I’m retired, I plan to expand on this in a later column.

For the present, I’m going to stick to the map incident. Let me quote Murphy regarding open plan maps. “Open-plan maps cannot be refolded without using scissors.” Yes, this is what Mr. Murphy says about such maps. Road maps are classic examples of open-plan maps. They can be difficult to refold, just as some times those unused large paper grocery bags can be difficult to open up. However, since they are all inanimate objects, they can’t plot against humanity.

Consider this. The map I described above opened to eight panels in one direction and five panels in another direction. The total number of ways that we can refold such a map is seemingly absurd, but mathematically certain. The formula is n! times 2n. The translation for this is n factorial multiplied by 2 raised to the nth power. We can calculate a number’s factorial by sequentially multiplying backwards. The factorial of three (3!) is 3 x 2 x 1 or 6. To calculate 2 raised to the 3rd power (23), is to multiply 2 by itself 3 times (2 x 2 x 2) or 8.

Let’s apply this arithmetic to our eight by five-panel map. The formula (n! x 2n) becomes (8! x 28). Now 8! is 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 or 40,320 and 28 is 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 or 256. The formula— 8! x 28— calculates to 10,321,920 different possible refolds of the original map. Since there is only one “right” way to fold it back the way it was, the chances of getting it right in one try come to .000009688%.

Every new map comes pre-folded. As our calculations point out, there is no shame in failing to refold it precisely that way. Some people are able to do so, but it has more to with cerebral hemispheric dominance than dumb luck.

Humans in general, hate to look foolish. Failing to master a paper bag or a map in front of others is embarrassing. However, since virtually every one of us has experienced it, the failure itself is not the culprit. The thing that makes us look so stupid is trouncing the bag or the map as though an inanimate object can plot against us. This kind of behavior causes people to assume that your IQ is two digits.

Remember! The next time that you stub your toe on the dresser as you make your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, don’t cuss the dresser. Just punch it! It’ll make you feel much better.

There will be more on Murphy’s Law next week. In the meantime, watch yourselves around those paper bags and maps. And for God’s sake, wear slippers when you walk around in the middle of the night!

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: publisher@thetruefacts.com