The Annie Year: A Novel - Stephanie Wilbur Ash

The oath of the Order of the Pessimists:

 

This is the meeting of the Pessimists, founded in 1992 in response to the unjustified optimism that runs rampant in this town. We believe in Schadenfreude, we uphold Murphy´s Law, and we embrace the slow, sad, inevitable decay of things. The only things we can be sure of are death and taxes.

 

Seriously, I want to become a member of the order. And since they I have only four members, they could use some fresh faces in their midst.