You call the repairman to fix a balky garage door, but when he gets there, it inexplicably works. You summon a plumber, only to find that when he arrives, your toilet’s no longer leaking, and you’re out $150. Or you discover that somewhere between your home and the doctor’s office, your kid’s sore throat miraculously healed. A caller in Traverse City, Michigan, is tearing her hair out over this phenomenon, which she calls phixophobia. But, she asks, might there be an even better word for the way inanimate objects seem to conspire against us? We think so: resistentialism. This is part of a complete episode.
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I have a friend from Germany who talked about something similar to the phixophobia that they called “the law of showing.” It referred either to showing a fault, such as showing a car to a mechanic, or the equally frustrating phenomenon of pulling something off successfully when no one is looking, but being unable to replicate it once you have an audience.