I mentioned at the end of yesterday's "Work Should Feel Wrong" entry, one of a series on my personal principles, that today's principle is the hardest of the bunch to describe.

Roll the clock back to my college years (hey, it's not that far...) and visit one of my Calculus study sessions with Brian. For whatever reason, Brian always went to class and needed help with the homework, and I never went to class and helped him with his homework. Be that as it may, it was during one of these sessions that we discovered this principle - more of an axiom - about the number zero and it's strange properties.

Because I'm lazy, I enlisted Brian's help via instant messenger this afternoon to reflect on the nature of the zero rule. He describes it thus:

Anything that so routinely invokes exceptions, special rules, or straight up melt downs in logical and procedural systems, despite a cool and easy going veneer on commonality, must have a sinister and malicious plan.

Here's his example. If you multiply 3 × 50 you get 150. And you can easily reverse that, where 150 ÷ 3 equals 50. But try that with 0, and it's a whole different scenario. You can't get back to where you started, and you've got nothing but an exception to an otherwise very nice, orderly set of rules.

The problem with zero is that it's such an innocuous looking thing that completely changes the game.

Interestingly, this rule seems to rear its head most often when there is zero of something, or something conspicuously missing that seems like it should be present. I am completely without examples of this, because it's one of those things that you only recognize when you realize you're in the midst of it, and you must react immediately or face the consequences of irrecoverable zero-based doom.

As with the Tetris Principle, you can really only grasp this if you're living it. I can't completely teach it to you.

And with a whimper, so ends my personal principle series. I hope you enjoyed these last six posts. I wish that people would look through these and think what seemingly mundane "rules" they follow and submit a few of their own in the comments, or in a post on their own blogs. It would be fun to trade them and exchange related stories.

I'll now return you to your regularly scheduled blog drivel.

I don't know if I had mentioned this before. I say it frequently enough, so you might have heard me talking about it. The bottom line is this: I'm evil.

I used to think I was marginally "good", but you know what? It's hard work and doesn't really pay off. So I've just given up on the idea altogether. What does this mean for you?

Well, evil isn't always as rotten as it might seem. I mean, evil inspires self-interest. So for example, if I was walking behind you and you passed out - for lack of any good premise - I might still provide assistance, but not for your sake. Instead, any aid would be motivated by wanting to remain innocent of charges that I caused the incident.

I bring all of this up because I was being evil to the kids tonight at dinner.

I took Abby to the grocery store after her Girl Scout meeting to pick up a quick dinner. Included with the fried chicken, salad, and mashed potatoes, I picked up a small assortment of cheesecake wedges. They looked pretty tasty. And while Berta and I like cheesecake, I was pretty sure at that point that the kids would not, at least, they would be surprised by the flavor and texture after hearing the word "cake". Still, Abby seemed convinced by the look of the thing that it would be tasty.

So at dinner, the kids were doing their typical refrain of "I'm done dinner and I want cake" after two bites of fried chicken breading. I told them repeatedly that they would receive no cake unless they ate more dinner. Enticed with just the word "cake" at first, they ate more. Then enticed more with the presentation of the cake at the table, they ate more. Then enticed finally more with the slicing of wedges onto Berta's and my plate, they ate even more.

I don't want to give the impression that I stuffed the kids or forced them to eat more than they would or should have. But I know how they behave when they don't like the food they're given, or think they're getting a treat and would rather eat that instead. Using this knowledge, I put it to good evil use and got them to eat their dinner.

And after they gave up on a bite of cheesecake, Berta and I finished theirs, too.

This is but one small recent anecdote relating to my conversion to the dark side, where I'm likely to generate many more interesting stories to share.