We had our first table read for season two yesterday.

That’s a very exciting thing, being on a show that comes back for another year. But this second year is still the first year, and I kind of forgot how we went straight from season one to the strike to season one point five, to this second season without a break.

That is, until Melissa McCarthy looked me over and said, “You guys… you didn’t get a break, did you? Not even like, a day.”

The actors were so tan. All of them, all healthy and glowing and pretty, happy to have had time off where they weren’t unemployed; they were on hiatus. It’s the same empty schedule, but a hiatus is allowed to be called a vacation.

So after staring at my pale skin and post-strike thighs, I knew the only thing that would make me feel both better and worse was a Table Read Cookie. They are very good cookies. I do not know what they put in them, but they are the talk of the Table Reads. That is, they’re the talk of the people who are not tiny, tan pretty people who are famous actors. Okay, they’re the talk of me.

It’s warm out, but I didn’t expect the cookie to be half-melted. In fact, I didn’t know it was half-melted until it was half-eaten, which is when I noticed that my hand was half-covered in chocolate. I tried to wipe it off on my napkin, but it was sticky and all I was doing was smearing chocolate streaks all along my hand and I’m sure there was an equal mess on my face. Like I’m five.

I try to be cool, but it’s not working. The more I’m cleaning chocolate, the messier it gets. I try to make a joke out of it to Tim Russ, who walks over to grab some kind of healthy-actor vegetable.

“Be careful of the cookies, Tim. They make a mess.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he says, always so cool.

I’m such a dork.

All of which means that my hands were in a sink when Christina Applegate came over to give me a hug, so I greeted her with, “I HAVE CHOCOLATE ALL OVER ME! BE CAREFUL! DON’T TOUCH ME!” I was able to wash most of the chocolate off, but for some reason felt compelled to inform Christina, “MY HANDS ARE WET NOW.” She kind of gave me that “Aw, one day you’ll have a good day” squint/grin, and then hugged me while I kept my arms at my sides.

This is why they try not to let the writers out of the room.