The buttered toast phenomenon is an observation that buttered toast tends to land butter-side down after it falls. It is used as an
idiom representing pessimistic outlooks. Various people have attempted to determine whether there is an actual tendency for bread to fall in this fashion, with varying results. Written accounts can be traced to the mid-19th century. The phenomenon is often attributed to a poem of James Payn from 1884:
I never had a slice of bread,
Particularly large and wide,
That did not fall upon the floor,
And always on the buttered side
Of course there's another explanation. Its
your fault for buttering the wrong side of the toast.