When Potato Salad Goes Bad or Tater's Law

The Daily Breather is no mathematician but one would think that the basic laws of probability should be pretty equal across the board.  This can easily be tested with the probability of flipping a coin or the probability of rolling snake eyes on a pair of dice. Both of these are just as boring as the math itself.  Where’s the risk? Where’s the reward? Where’s the potato salad?  More importantly, where is the good potato salad? 

You too might be asking yourself this very same question when you come upon a poorly planned banquet table from time to time.  What makes it poorly planned?  Well, four different people brought a pan of potato salad. Now that’s some poor planning if you ask me.  It’s not a total loss though because I love a good potato salad.  Conversely, I got no time or patience for poorly prepared potato salad (It’s times like these that I wish I could find a synonym for salad that begins with P). 

Enter the law of probability.  Of the four pans of potato salad what are the chances that I’ll choose the one that tastes like ass?  You would think my chances are 1 in 4 right?  Well, I’m here to tell you that potato salad is the great negater in said law.  Now it might just be poor choices that I’ve made throughout my life (in choosing potato salad that is) but I believe that I am on the losing side of probability when choosing a choice potato salad when more than three options are set before me. 

How can I overcome this?  I don’t want to be that guy who has to give each potato salad the sniff test.  That doesn’t look right. And I shouldn’t take four helpings of potato salad and try them all, although, I believe four servings is the USDA recommended amount of potato salad that each American should be consuming.  That might be outdated data though. That was info taken from a 5^th grade science fair project I did.  It’s probably higher now.

Until I can find the perfect way to identify the proper potato salad I’ll be that guy sitting in a folding chair with a plate of food on my lap making a sour milk face.  Who brought this horrible potato salad?