Well...Pluto has been demoted. No, nothing to do with Walt Disney or Mickey Mouse...the planet...or the "dwarf planet formerly known as a planet" is just too tiny a cosmic speck to be ranked up there according to the International Astronomical Union (IAU). For the next week or so prepare yourself for the onslaught of "planet envy" and obligatory "Uranus thrown in for good measure" jokes.
Now this is nothing new...planetary science has changed their minds lots of times...the Earth is not flat...the sun doesn't revolve around the Earth...Neptune has more moons than originally thought...but this changes everything. The effect is literally of cosmic proportions...Clyde Tombaugh will now be stripped of the honour bestowed upon him in 1930 of discovering the 9th planet...textbooks will have to be rewritten...those $8.99 glow-in-the dark mobiles they sell at all science stores will have to sport "take out the tiny one...no, not that one, that's Mercury...the other tiny one...throw it away" stickers...the very boring guy at the planetarium who's recited the same speech he's memorized and rattled off to visiting 3rd grade school groups since nearly 1930 will have to be "reprogrammed"...or worse...or...uh...maybe better yet - replaced.
But the thing that the IAU failed to take at all into consideration when they voted poor little Pluto off the solar system was the fact that the "My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas" mnemonic acronym will now have to be totally revamped. Oh...this is not a very simple undertaking whatsoever...just imagine having to erase that "Roy G Biv" thing out of your head...or "Every Good Boy Does Fine"...sure we've all heard the alternate versions, "Deserves Fudge" and "Deserves Favour"...but it's like that "i before e" thing...or the "It's a Small World" song... it's IN there...it cannot be taken out or altered...it's just NOT done...what on EARTH were they thinking there in Prague today?
So, I call upon everyone out there to make up a new "planet order" version and send it to the IAU...well you can send it to me, too...but maybe a flood of emails to this scientific group will get them to rethink their decision...and revote. Come on, it IS a union after all, right...aren't they supposed to deal with changing demands...sometimes even on a universal level?
A Bit About Me
- Mariann Simms
- Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".
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