Everyone knows Murphy's Law.

Mom's Law is similar, but worse. Not only will things go wrong whenever they can, but they will go wrong at the worst possible time.

Like when you are having a large family gathering at a relative's house covered in wall-to-wall white carpeting, and your child has a diaper blowout. Yeah.

Or when you are on your way to visit friends you've been looking forward to seeing all week, and not only does your child spit up all over your carefully selected shirt, but you notice you've sat in something gross. (Or even better, you don't notice you've sat in something gross until you get there and your friend's friend tells you.) And now you don't have another matching outfit.

Most recently, I realized I threw away a Visa reward card (found money! woo-hoo!) that came in the mail. But I realized this at 1:28 am. I got out of bed and started going through the trash can. With the light kept dim so I wouldn't wake up my husband or son, I admitted I really couldn't see what I was doing. I was going to have to wait. So then I had to wash my hands, turn off the light and do the requisite tripping around in the dark.

This morning after breakfast, I got some gloves and started going through the garbage piece by piece. Because, after all, $20 is $20. All I found, though, were leftover scraps, empty containers and junk mail. No reward card.

I'm a victim, I tell you! A victim of Mom's Law. Not only did something go wrong (I tossed my reward card), but I had to go digging through the garbage twice, only to find it wasn't in there.

I threw it out the day before.

Garbage day.