I

HAVE a suspicion that most, if not all of us, have experienced this: you spot something particularly fascinating. Maybe it’s a pair of Piet-my-vrous perched on a branch, inappropriately displaying their affection for each other in public. Or a man at OR Tambo International wearing tracksuit pants and cowboy boots. Or, better yet, two geniuses embroiled in a fist fight over a parking bay in Newtown, Johannesburg.

This being the technology age, you whip out your smartphone so you can send a picture to your Facebook friends for giggles. However, just as you’re about to click away, a certain Captain Ed Murphy enters the scene.

Yes, the aviation engineer after whom Murphy’s Law is named.

About 0.3 seconds before you take the shot, the two avian lovers fly away, the man in the tracksuit pants disappears behind an advertising banner and the two Neanderthals get an acute attack of pacifism