"The New Meth...Wait, No, Even More Addictive Than That: The New Chocolate"

About fifteen years ago, I took up cross-stitching for all of two months. Single and childless, I was looking for a hobby, and the idea of handiwork tapped in to my desire to share pursuits, outside of grinding corn and sitting in straight-backed chairs in my whale-bone corset, with my colonial ancesors. So I got a hoop and some floss and started making all those little X-s into pictures.

After two months, I had a moment of awakening: I didn't actually have a need in my life for little stitched pictures to--what?--frame. Plus, sitting inside under artificial light with my head bent in the height of summer struck me as one of my dumber notions, as well.

I decided it was time to lift my head and venture out into the sunshine. Whilst under the rays, shading my eyes, I peered around for a new hobby.

For awhile, I occupied myself with lacing a pair of snowshoes. Again, though, my head was bent, my neck was sore, and who can watch the Oscars in their full glory that way? So then I made a lot of mixed tapes. Inside. In the middle of the night.

From reading to handiwork, my natural hobbirific inclinations have always taken me back to the world of dim lights and head-bent posture, which leaves me feeling I could have been one hell of a hooker.

The good news is that I have recently decided to ride an entirely new hobbyhorse, and this time, I can keep my head held high and throw my shoulders back--drawing in the daylight--as I slap the reins and dig in my heels.

Friends, I've decided to use my spare time to become litigious.

Yes, I know there are plenty of lawsuits out there already. But they are often frivolous, ultimately effecting no great societal change. I aim to come up with real challenges to the law, the results of which will overthrow our current ways of thinking. I am a revolutionary.

Instead of buying hoops and embroidery floss, my new hobby requires only imagination, the faintest acquaintance with the law, and a burning desire for undeserved money. I have all three.

Having sent in my dues and registration to the national organization, The LSS (Litigious System Suckers), I am ready to roll.

Specifically, for my first project, I will be suing Universal Studios, the parent company (read: having the deepest pockets) overseeing the production of the current television show Battlestar Galactica. My beef is this: one episode at a time, the writers and actors of this program are giving me an ulcer. As the groom and I lurch through the first season on DVD, I find my stomach in knots, clenching, releasing, flopping over. Universal should be held financially accountable--do we not all agree?--for not only the ulcer developing in my stomach but also, perhaps more importantly, for my lost sleep (which then affects job performance) and shredded cuticles (a lifetime's supply of free manicures at the spa of my choice seems a fair settlement).

Universal, your show is killing me. Even worse, you've made it so addictive that I am beyond helping myself. My ailments have become your responsibility, so pay up. And if you won't, I'll turn my attentions to the Sci-Fi channel, which airs the show. Short and simple: someone is going down.

This lawsuit will not be completely straightforward, of course, as there are many subtleties beyond getting Universal to pay for my cocktail of ulcer medications (brain flash: maybe a cocktail would be just the medicine!). For example, my husband, normally a steady, calm fellow, actually imagined himself, as he ran a weekly trail race the other day, being chased by Galactica's villains: the Cylons. As Groom dodged amongst the birches and pines, slogging away in the mud, he envisioned himself in peril from those vengeaful robots, to the point that he finished the race wet and exhausted. We are, therefore, going to need for Universal to pay for the drycleaning of his running clothes, a new bar of green-tea-infused soap (okay, for me) to rinse the mud away, and, um, a new pair of running shoes while they're at it.

Oh, and, I, uhhhhhhh, have had to shriek sometimes during stressful scenes in the show, and so my, em, ears hurt. But if Universal were to give me a dazzling pair of diamond earrings, my ears would feel eversomuch better.

Plus, the show has engendered in me a strong desire to pilot a Viper or a Cylon raider, so flying lessons would seem in order. And maybe a trip to another planet (tourist class is fine). And, er, in a few episodes they drink some gnarly-looking green liqueur, so I'll need a bottle of that...and some expensive cigars labeled "Last in this Planetary System"...and maybe a few of those cute tank tops the CAG pilots wear. Oops, and Edward James Olmos has some seriously awe-inspiring skin going on; to allay my fears of experiencing similar acne scars, only a lifetime supply of Proactiv Solution will do.

But really, being a reasonable woman and realizing this lawsuit is only a hobby, that should do it. Oh, wait, I guess I could also use a telephone with a cord. I don't have one of those, but apparently they do once the universe has been colonized in the future. How modernistic it would be of me to have the only house on the block that contains a phone with a cord that hooks into the wall!

And if Universal agrees to settle out of court and save us all on legal fees, I'll be more than glad to return to my cross-stitching just long enough to produce a little something to hang on the office wall of the CEO of Universal Studios:

Clearly, cross-stitching this would be a complicated project, hard to fit in between all my new hobbies of getting manicures, taking flying lessons, and holding cocktail parties,

but no thanks are necessary, Universal;

it's the least I can do.