The Law of Underneath the Furniture

The next time some smarty-pants says: “Numbers don’t lie, you know,” I promise I’ll rip his tongue off its root and make a necktie out of it. And I swear that the next time someone says to me: “Well, your argument falls flat on its nose if you consider the statistical reality,” I’ll grab his nipples between my thumbs and forefingers and squeeze hard until they go purple. Male or female, I don’t care — I ain’t scared of no Gender Commission.

Statisticians, mathematicians, physicists — that whole bunch of liars has done a number on all of us (no pun). The laws of probability and averages are just a bullshit way of saying: “We don’t know what the hell is going on here but we’ll be damned if we’re going to admit ignorance to the PhD-less morons.”

I am 35 years old now and I have never dropped a coin that didn’t roll towards the farthest-to-reach part of the room I was in and underneath a 500kg piece of furniture. Or a drain. Not once. And I’ve never seen it happen to anyone else. Has anyone ever dropped a coin that bounced around a little and landed between one’s feet? Yet, statistically speaking, this should be an everyday occurrence. I think these lazy statisticians should get off their behinds and do some work for a change. I think there is a Law of Underneath the Furniture (LUF) that no one has bothered investigating. I don’t feel I’m getting my money’s worth from this bunch. Do you?

This morning I spent 45 minutes searching for the car keys. The good news is that, in those 45 minutes, I found every single set of keys we have amassed since the beginning of time. I found the spare keys to a car we have not owned for four years. I even found the prenuptial agreement I had drawn up when I was a bachelor with delusions of being in charge of this whole marriage set-up.

The only thing I didn’t find is the set of keys that had been in my shirt pocket at 7.50pm when I got home last night. And if I have a bunch of tagless keys, the one that will open the door is always the last one. Statistically speaking, if there are five keys, the probability of picking the right key should be about 20%, shouldn’t it? Ha! Try 0,000001%.

Sometimes I drive around in a car that looks like it’s just finished the Paris-Dakar Rally for weeks. That’s because I have observed a pattern — each time I have the car washed and buffed, it rains. So what’s the flippin’ point? Yet my better half makes me watch Simon Watchimadomechrome every night to find out if it’ll rain or not. These guys clearly do not know what the hell is going on. That’s why they always circle a really wide area from Namibia all the way to Swaziland (“There will be showers somewhere around here”) and they never point at the actual screen with the map on it. This is an obvious ploy from the stations’ legal team — “Well, technically speaking my client, Mr Cheesekop over here, never pointed at the map.” So, of course, as soon as I leave the carwash, the floodgates open. Followed by sunny skies 90 seconds later.

Statisticians love saying impressive-sounding but utterly useless things such as “One person’s experiences do not qualify as a statistically significant sample,” the bastards. And don’t you just love how they love saying “statistically speaking”, the show-offs? Yet you never hear priests going: “You are going to hell, religiously speaking.” But I digress. Let’s go back to my statistically insignificant experiences.

I demand that statisticians come up with better explanations for what’s going on here. I am one of those people who never change lanes in the traffic because I believe these guys’ ganja-induced hallucinations. And without fail, the lane I choose is guaranteed to be the slowest lane for kilometres. Once in a blue moon I will decide to change lanes in sheer exasperation. And then the lane I have just left starts flowing smoother than 20-year-old Scotch. As for supermarket lanes, I gave up a long time ago. As soon as it’s my turn, Happiness, the till attendant, presses the buzzer and I have to wait for 20 minutes for Precious, the floor manager, to come open the till. I demand an explanation!

When I got married, I heaved a huge sigh of relief and thanked God I was out of the courtship scene. Each Friday evening I’d take an extraordinarily thorough shower — sometimes as long as three minutes. I’d shave my face, douse myself with aftershave lotion, clip my nails, my nose hair and lastly, put on my good underwear. You know, just in case I got lucky.

Without fail, I’d return to my apartment alone, full of beer, to go hug the toilet bowl. This could go on for weeks. (Insert appropriately immature sperm-retention joke here.) But on that Saturday evening when I’m minding my own business with my savage friends, celebrating yet another Chiefs victory over Pirates, some member of the female species would get the uncontrollable urge to go home with my unwashed self. Ignore the obvious problems of breadcrumbs and peanut-butter stains on the sheets. Try to explain your stinky, tattered, black-and-gold, eight-year-old lucky knickers.

Statisticians better catch a wake up and come up with the LUF: if not for me, then for the good of the human race at large. The laws of probability are clearly made-up bullshit to weasel out of having to explain why nobody ever switches on to the appropriate radio station in time to hear more than 20 seconds of their favourite song.

A catastrophe is waiting to happen unless we hold our scientists accountable. The day the aliens invade planet Earth will be on George W’s last day in the White House. As discomforting as the thought might be, only George W could possibly save us from an alien attack. But that’s the day Monica Lewinsky will just happen to drop by for a friendly visit. And he’ll think: “What the heck? It’s my last day,” and get down-tracked (geddit?).

Who will pick up that red telephone?

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