Never assume ice is safe. Check date on bag for freshness. Stale ice can ruin a good cocktail.

Do not go to the hotel ice machine alone. Hotel corridors can be deserted and thus dangerous, especially between midnight and 4 AM.

In five-star restaurants, be aware of numerous free-standing ice buckets. Colliding with one can cause bruising and humiliation.

Know that ice surrounding oysters is more expensive than other kinds of ice.

Bags of ice can be heavy. When loading your snowmobile for a beer party on a frozen lake, use your torso to lift.

Do not walk on new ice. Just buy it pre-crushed. Otherwise, you will ruin your shoes.

Blue ice is typically safer than clear ice, but only when it comes to skating. In drinks it may have been dosed with an unknown mind-altering substance.

At family parties, avoid displaying ice sculptures in dolphin shapes, as they can take on a suggestive silhouette as they melt, offending older relatives who may write you out of their wills.

When making cocktails with a shaker, do not shake too close to your ear. Colliding ice particles can cause hearing loss.

Don’t stare too long at a comet. Your eyes could freeze.

Pluto: avoid.

Novelty ice cube trays are best left in the ’90s. Shun or risk losing your cool friends and sitting alone drinking margaritas upon which cactus-shaped ice cubes float, pricking at you emotionally and physically.

At the skating rink, dilute the liquor in your concealed flask with a 1:1 ratio of ice so as not to get too buzzed and overconfident, which can lead to injury.

Do you know everyone who has used the ice dispenser at the self-serve fountain drink station before you? No? Do not use it then.

When visiting Antarctica, do not bring a vodka bottle frozen in ice as a gift for the research scientists. All of their sustenance comes frozen already. They may get annoyed and play keep-away with your parka.

Also, do not comment to the scientists that the groaning sound the ice makes is “the voice of the earth.” They will not stand for poeticism and will lock you out of the station, causing windburn.

When watching the National Geographic Channel and presented with footage showing pieces of glaciers breaking off, do not cry out, “That’s called ‘calving’!” Everyone knows that and thinking you know more than the rest of us might make you less popular.

If you are a particularly skilled football coach, keep a blanket and change of clothes in your locker or risk hypothermia.

An ice floe is no place for a bonfire, break-up, or dressage practice.

At swim-up resort bars in the South Pacific, refrain from crunching ice between your teeth. You may not hear the tsunami warning siren.

Driveway ice is not a good place to check your reflection. It will be distorted and this could hurt your confidence.

Do not have clients sign contracts written in the ice on your car windshield. It may seem like it will never melt, but it will.

It is a myth that the one remaining “good” beer is buried at the bottom of the cooler. Don’t spend too long fishing for that obscure Belgian ale. If it is there at all, it is probably over-chilled anyway, and you could get frostbite.

When carrying an ice cube, do not run. What are you trying to outrun anyway? The rate at which a solid becomes a liquid? Good luck defeating basic physics.

Avoid putting ice cubes in a glass that has just been removed from a hot dishwasher. The temperature difference may crack the glass. This will lead to a series of thoughts such as: “How did I come to live in a world of such unnatural ease, where hot and freezing surfaces exist in such close proximity all for my convenience? But it’s not that unnatural actually… there’s Iceland… with the thermal pools on snow-covered fields. I’ve been meaning to go there. Why haven’t I gone yet? Why aren’t I doing the things I said I’d do? It isn’t just Iceland…” And you will forget to change the music for your party guests, who may get bored and leave early.

If you must go to the hotel ice machine alone, bring the tongs for defense.