It has been a very rough month.

Once upon a time on a bright and windy autumn day, an ogress and a goblin went for a walk in an enchanted wood. The goblin was especially crabby because he had broken his finger. His bandage was getting in the way of his favorite activities. He complained loudly and longly to the ogress as they entered the wood. The ogress ate the complaints, which made her grow larger. Unfortunately, complaints give ogres indigestion, so she was quite as unpleasant as the goblin. He complained. She growled. The trees shrank back from the path in fear.

After the pair had walked half a mile or so, they came upon a fork in the road. The ogress stopped for a moment to consider which path to take. The left path looked arduous but perhaps the climbing would rob the goblin of breath, thereby reducing his constant complaint. The right path was lovely, sunny, and wide, exactly the type of path that ogresses prefer. As she pondered, the goblin felt a memory tickle his miserable little brain. "Two paths in the wood. I took the less travelled," the goblin muttered. Ogres have very sharp hearing, of course, so the ogress recognized the incantation. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by." And ever so slightly, the goblin and ogress began to change. They began to look more human. The ogress even smiled. Another traveler came down the path and veered left. The monsters decided to take the road less traveled at the moment and started down into the valley.

As they walked into the sunshine, the pair began to seem less and less like monsters. The ogre shrank down to human size. The goblin's beady little eyes grew larger and rounder. Their greenish skins gradually begin to look peachier. The goblin stopped complaining as the ogress shared a few discoveries with him: a tunnel under a mountain, a gnome's house in the base of a large tree, and a particularly fine walking stick.

Then, as they were almost out of the wood, the goblin placed his hand into the ogress' hand. As she felt around the big bandage for the small hand inside, the ogress remembered that she wasn't actually a monster at all. She was a mother. As the goblin looked up at the woman who was no longer an ogress, he remembered that he was really a little boy. So the woman and her son went back home where they shared hot chocolate and sandwiches.