Last night, the full moon was low and bright over the horizon on a
clear California evening. It looked extra large. “Wow,” said my
beautiful wife. “Look at the moon.” It was spectacular, perched above
the silhouette of townhouses in the distance. One extroverted star and
a wisp of night clouds completed the composition. For two newlyweds on
their way to a Saturday night dinner, it was a perfect moment.
There are many romantic things that you can say when looking at the
moonlit sky. I decided to go with “It looks like the moon is going to
crash into the Earth and annihilate us.”
“What?” said my wife, still lost in the magic of the moment.
“The moon looks extra large. That’s either because of the refraction
from the additional atmosphere at that angle, or the moon lost its
orbit and its going to destroy all life on earth.”
“I think we would have heard something on the news if the moon were heading toward us,” Shelly pointed out.
“Not necessarily. The government might have decided there was
nothing we could do about it, so there’s no point in ruining our
weekend,” I countered.
When it comes to romance, the important thing is to win the
argument. So at this point I was committed. I was going to make the
best possible case I could that the moon was going to kill us. I
continued, “Besides, how competent is our government anyway? It’s not
as if this would be its first big mistake, or the first time they
didn’t tell us the truth.”
Shelly got quiet after I made that excellent point. That’s how I
know I won. And it felt good because I know she was thinking how lucky
she is to have married a man who knows so much about moons and
governments.
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