Monday, July 14, 2008

When I Was Your Age, Pluto Was a Planet

I've long since accepted, debunked, and forgiven the lies that were told to me by my mother. Yes I believed in Santa much longer than any kid should. I would literally fist fight with my friends about Santa, how dare they even question his existence. I was scrappy I was. After these fights, I would always pray that my friends would get cornbread and switches in their stockings. Because my mother had told me that if I kept throwing fits in the morning, when she brushed out my hair, that I would be getting nothing but corn bread and switches for Christmas. And even after I stopped believing in Santa, I still held on to the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Since there is nothing remotely scary about a bunny breaking into your house and leaving behind plastic eggs, or a miniature fairy stealing your teeth. Someone once told me that the tooth fairy taught children it was ok to sell body parts for money. Yes she does indeed.

My mother and I never had the birds and the bees talk either, when I asked her at a very impressionable age, “Where Babies Came From?" She simply told me that she had prayed for a blonde hair, blue eyed little girl and that is what she got. This would lead to many misconceptions about relationships with boys until I got much, much older.

These are lies you’d expect to hear from your parents, so I can forgive them. I take about as much offense to these white lies, as I do the the fact that Adam ate the last piece of garlic bread on Friday.

But then there are those lies that society tells us. Truths you held to be self-evident, truths near and dear to your heart since childhood. Things that when you find them to be untruthful, it tears out the little heart of that child that beats within. That is how I felt the first time I learned that Pluto was no longer a planet.

I loved studying the solar system as a child. I had memorized all nine planets long before I even knew why "Uranus" was supposed to sound dirty. Pluto was my favorite, the underdog of the solar system. Plus that really cute Disney dog was named after him. Now Pluto is given the sad little title of dwarf planet and I don’t even know if we are allowed to capitalize the name Pluto anymore (but I won’t ever quit). Apparently, Pluto is actually Neptune's bitch, and to me this all seems very insulting and earth shattering. These “scientists” stole a little bit of my childhood, and I will never look at the world the same.

7 comments:

  1. I don't feel as strongly about Pluto's downgrade as you do Brittany but I'm with you in thinking its planet status should have remained unchanged.

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  2. I walked into the Discovery Channel Store short after Pluto was downgraded (personally I think Pluto was robbed!) The staff wore pins that said "Bring Back Pluto!" and they weren't taling about the Disny dog.

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  3. As far as I am concerned, Pluto is Superman's pet dog! haha! I've something for you at my place, come get it! Thanks!

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  4. Santa is real and Pluto is a planet. What do those fools know anyway?

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  5. I agree. If an entity has planet status for a certain number of years (say 100), it should be able to keep its status, despite whatever scientists say! Maybe we could call it a "planet emeritus" like "professor emeritus" which is a title of respect for a retired but no longer teaching professor. You know, it used to be a planet and we respect it for its years of service.

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  6. As others have stated Pluto was robbed.. I wonder if it is still in therapy about it?? :)

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  7. Condo Blues: Ha, I to this day wonder why Goofy was treated better than pluto. Weren't the both dogs?

    Randall: I pity those fools!

    Patricia: That is an awesome idea, worthy of a nobel peace prize.

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I love comments, and I always read my comments. But sometimes I make a mental note to go comment back on your blog, and then forget to (Even if I’m an avid read of your blog, whoops). Since I'm so bad about this, I will mostly reply to comments in my comment section, so please check back! If you have something pressing to talk to me about you can e-mail me at brittanyervin86@yahoo.com.
Britt

 

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