10. I wasn’t kidnapped by aliens, exactly — they did ask politely, and it’s just a matter of infinite improbability that the Thraxxi phrase for “Would you like to toil in our Crisco mines?” sounds a lot like the English phrase “Would you like ice cream? There’s some in our van.” That took a while to resolve.

9. Ascending into the Greater Disembodied Unified Unconscious wasn’t the hard part; getting out of it (after the GDUU turned out to mostly involve longing for bacon and arguing with itself about Dr. Who) without tipping my mental hand that I wanted to leave, was a long process involving a fake bacon-spirit and a poisoned bow tie.

8. Bringing a cell phone to Orthanc ought to have been a time-saver, but it turns out that Gwaihir is really hard to spell, and Googling “giant eagle” gives you the grocery store for like the first thirty pages of results. Fortunately, the Pittsburgh night manager came through in a pinch. (*fistbump*)

7. I don’t want to go into it, but let’s just say that one should never pick a polysyllabic safeword when playing with very-short-duration time travel.

6. If I’d been paying attention, I’d have noted the lack of capitalization on “hot pocket dimension” before walking through the door. (I still think that would be a great name for a convenience store, though)

5. Found a magical portal in the back of a deep closet; tumbled gently for what seemed like forever, buffeted by hot winds that felt like magical hands, lowering me to safety. Spent a month stuck in a noisy boiler room, eating mice. (Mice might have been magical talking mice. Wasn’t really in the mood.)

4. Was discovered to be the savior-hero foretold since the beginning of time to die valiantly in battle saving a village full of assholes. The invading army really appreciated my help carting off the villagers’ stuff, and I only recently sobered up enough to drive home.

3. Thought they were just poor spellers, advertising their low-cost “Thyme Travel Vacation”. As it happens, farm tourism is a lot of fun. Not boring at all, not even three weeks in. Did you know there are over a hundred varieties of thyme? I’ve seen them! Here, I have a brochure. No really, I insist.

2. I’m not actually sure what happened. The last thing I remember is seeing a guy in a black suit with a little pen-thing that flashed a bright light. Also having a sprained wrist, and my pockets being full of something unsettlingly like mucus.

1. Selling a house, packing it all up, and moving an hour and a half away? Turns out to be a lot of work.