We've gotta work on this truth-in-advertising thing. Sure, who hasn't heard that chocolate is bad for you? Rots your teeth, fattens your ass, puts the thunder in your thighs? Sure, we've got it. We ignore it every time we buy a candy bar.

However, in all those PSAs, parental lectures, and root canals, has anyone ever said to you "Stay away from that nasty chocolate or you'll get a one-inch gash on your left thumb?" Don't think so.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am the only person I know who has shed blood over a Sunday morning chocolate craving.I have also, however, managed to prove yet again that the severity of my injuries can be determined by the amount and hue of my swearing just after the injury is sustained. Torrents of colorful and inventive invective can mean only one thing: paper cut.

For some reason, the breaking of bones or the flagrant spouting of blood makes me completely forget how to swear.

Quests are bad. Not bad as in "world-ending" bad, but as in "my friends will all need antacids and my spouse will be praying for pizza tonight" bad. Quests usually involve my blowing nearly half a tank of gas on the back streets of Huntsville, with addresses scrawled on sheets of paper and a eerily determined look in my eye.The last quest was to find a restaurant supply store in Huntsville that had some very specific equipment I needed. Half a tank of gas and one rainy afternoon later, I came to the conclusion that there wasn't a single restaurant supply shop in Huntsville that had what I was looking for. Afterwards, I came home and received a very thorough list of complaints from Tenzing and Edmund, namely:

1. that the owners of the house, namely Tenzing and Edmund, were left alone in the house for a period of five hours, and

By most people's standards, I don't think you'd call today a day of rest. There's nothing quite like realizing for the seven-millionth time that making dinner for fewer than eight people really isn't that big of a deal, but, really, it isn't. Dinner for five (like tonight) - a cakewalk. I could practically do it in my sleep at this point.

Just about every story told by anyone who has ever worked retail in this side of the galaxy begins with the phrase, "There was this guy…"

With it comes the unspoken understanding: Don't be that guy.

Given the way this universe works, it seems highly likely that "that guy" doesn't actually exist. Instead, what we're likely to be dealing with is a highly invasive microorganism which jumps to host to host, infecting them with a strange kind of temporary insanity that compels them to go to the nearest grocery store.

Few things are more difficult or more tiresome than trying to come up with something halfway interesting to say on a Friday night when you're tired, quite possibly coming down with a bit of a cold, have nursed the beginning twinges of a headache for several hours, and can't think of anything else better to say than "Hey, I made chicken stock tonight."

Yes. That's it. That's the full extent of it: another two figures accomplished on Kat's scarf (each figure is approximately four inches long) and a nagging, throbbing pain centered square in my forehead, like a third eye. The good news is that the chicken stock, given time to cool and solidify, will be strong enough to stand up under its own power and … well … do whatever chicken stock does whenever it's strong enough to stand up under its own power.