"Well, [deleted]."

So I am trying to wipe the hard drive on a laptop with no optical drive.  No problemmo!  The Customizing UBCD page at ultimatebootcd.com has a two-line text command and a built-in program on the Ultimate Boot CD will automagically turn a formatted USB stick into a bootable Ultimate Boot . . . uh. . . Stick.  This used to be a hassle with older versions of UBCD, but now it is dead simple and worked

PERFECTLY

on the first go.  So I booted the laptop, changed the BIOS settings to boot from USB first and rebooted.  It loaded the UBCD menu in frikken RECORD time and shaBAM here I am in Darik's Boot and Nuke ready to blast the data on my hard drive all to smithereens.  So as usual I typed "autonuke" at the prompt and DBAN started a'wipin all the drives it saw.  Including my shiny new UBCD-on-a-stick flash drive.

At this point, I said rather a naughty word.  Then I was happy I had the Customizing UBCD page still open, and (after reformatting the USB drive in Windows Disk Management) I proceeded to REmake my bootable USB UBCD drive.  Like a boss.  Only perhaps, next time, I will tell DBAN just exactly WHICH drive to nuke. 

Complacency will get you, and your flash drive software, killed.