The book begins with the Baudelaire orphans on their way to their new guardian's home. Dr. Montgomery is a herpetologist, likes coconut cream cake, and plans to take the children with him to Peru to study snakes. Their new living situation seems ideal -- each child has a comfy bed and items they enjoy to play with or to study. But of course (since this is a series of unfortunate events), Count Olaf, the villain from the first book, isn't far away, and as soon as he arrives things go awry and no further good comes to the Baudelaire children. My favorite parts of this series are definitely the asides, and this aside is the best of the lot so far:

It is now necessary for me to use the rather hackneyed phrase "meanwhile, back at the ranch." The word "hackneyed" here means "used by so many writers that by the time Lemony Snicket uses it, it is a tiresome cliche." "Meanwhile, back at the ranch" is a phrase used to link what is going on in one part of the story to what is going on in another part of the story, and it has nothing to do with cows or horses or with any people who work in rural areas where ranches are, or even with ranch dressing, which is creamy and put on salads.