It is generally accepted in the literature on the subject that putting toothpaste in a tube was the greatest revelation ever in oral hygiene, and therefore mankind. For all of Edison's genius, he could never put his (relatively useless) "light bulb" into a tube. It took almost 200 years for the railroad to be put into the Chunnel (that's French for tube).

There are some facts of life that scientists simply can't explain, such as the half-life of the proton or the shelf-life of a Twinkie. Perhaps the most perplexing of all natural phenomena is the one-body problem: loneliness. I don't have the answer for why people get lonely; I'm just good at noticing when they do and making fun of them for it. What follows is a day in the life in the overcast shadow of Loneliness based on true events, events that happen every day in my head, and things I've read on the side of a cereal box.

I like to think that I've been a good boy all my life. I walk the line against club drugs and riverboat gambling, I use sunblock lotion religiously, and I floss regularly. After I lather and rinse, I repeat. Recently, however, my life has begun to spiral out of control, like in a movie when the protagonist spins into a lollipop-swirl background while screaming "noooooooo!" What has been the cause of this slide from to control to crazytown you ask? Nine girls, ten days, and thousands of itchy bumps later identified as scabies.

As a young straight white male with a college education, a car, a girlfriend, two dogs, an unbroken home, a wallet full of money and a cookie in my pocket, I can tell you one thing for sure: life never gives me any breaks.

The United States consumes 80 million Hershey's Kisses every day, and on Valentine's day that number jumps to over 280 million?well over one for every man, woman, child, and spider monkey in the U.S. More amazing is the fact that this number doesn't even come close to the at least one billion hearts?whether chalky, chocolate-coated or caramel-filled?that are consumed on that same day.

I don't really like food, and I hate cleaning my hands. Forks scare me. In reality, the only thing I like about cooking is the microwave.

Every year when Thanksgiving approaches I get this "thing" in my throat?a kind of pain, as if I swallowed a tennis ball or a whole sweet potato. My glands start to wobble and my legs grow plump; my neck elongates and my head starts to swivel.

The odds of success when reintroducing a species to the wild are slim?statistically speaking, these odds are about five percent better than really really crummy, plus or minus five percent. These precise statistics don't only apply to box turtles and the elusive blue manatee; they apply to the reintroduction of lethargic college students as well. With less than a year before my own reintroduction to the "jungle out there," I am beginning to fear for my life?well okay, my life of luxury.

The air is getting colder, the days are getting shorter, the leaves are drying and dying; and as is the case every year, with the death of the leaves comes the death of something else: the hopes of all the Red Sox fans that one day the Sox might win the Series.

The other night at dinner I found myself sitting down to eat without a fork. Or cereal. The first is noteworthy because I had prepared a salad; the second because the only utensil I had grabbed from the abundant silverware holders of our very own Thorne dining hall was a cereal spoon. In fact, the latter is doubly noteworthy because you can't accidentally acquire a cereal spoon in Thorne

Since I was "lucky" enough to spend my summer within the bubble, I thought I should give those of you who had an out-of-bubble experience a quick tour of recent changes undergone in those bygone months of blissful repast . . .

If you're reading this-or anything, for that matter, but given the audience I can safely confine the conversation to this-then you are most certainly living in a hole in the ground. It's Ivies. There is no reading during Ivies.

College is a time for questioning what you believe; it is a time when your thoughts are challenged in the classroom and in life. Nearly three years of college existence have shaken my belief down to its very nuggety center.

As someone of faith, a college student of the hard sciences with a strong background in the humanities, an international traveler and entrepreneur extraordinaire, I feel that I am generally well-outfitted for the task of comprehending the little oddities of day-to-day experience.