WTF!
I was just driving for 20 minutes!
So I push my car forward out of the gas pump area, and see a giant oil puddle. Please, please let that not be mine. Check the dipstick, and there's barely a drop. Just filled it the night before.
Call a friend.. he gives me a boost, I let the battery charge for about 15 minutes, then head home with everything except headlights off, myself frozen like a block of ice. My valves aren't clattering, but I'm definitely low on oil.
Get home, kill the engine, and grab a light. Engine bay is splattered with oil. Alternator completely soaked. Oil dripping from everything. I just finished capping off my PCV system and going with a breather, meaning my crankcase pressure was neutral instead of negative, so nothing was stopping the oil from leaking out of any cracks.
I grab a wrench and check the valve cover gasket bolts. All loose. I used a torque wrench, but not rubber grommets (stupid). I tighten them up, and as I get to the last one on the timing belt side ... SNAP. Oh. No.
It wasn't the bolt head. It was .. something else.
Reluctantly I took all the bolts out, disconnected the front PCV pipe, and lifted the valve cover. The aluminum that the bolt went in was cracked and sitting on the cam gears.
To make matters worse, the reason the alternator stopped working was it was completely soaked in oil. There was nothing I could do to fix the engine that night, so I hosed down the alternator with flux remover in the hopes it was just oil on the brushes making it fail.
Today I bought some JB weld and "glued" the broken chunk back on the head. I'll have to avoid torquing it when I put that bolt back in, so I'll hit the area with extra gasket maker and hope for the best.
If they're too long, it can be a disaster! Of course, everyone probably knew this anyway. 
Ahem.