Also, at the current rate they’ll be at 700k losses next Tuesday.

I bought my edge grain cutting board there. They have 2" versions as well as up to 6" versions (https://www.holz-liebling.de/produkt-kategorie/schneidebretter/hackblock/) You could look at their pictures to get some hints at what you could do.

As for timing, one could use the flock function to ensure only one process starts. Something like this (untested): flock -n ~/.htop.lock -c htop