And so we enter another chapter where the minds of my children are being subjected to the absurd… in Cub Scout Day Camp of all places. This isn’t the first time and it’s sure to not be the last either. This week has been the week-long annual Cub Scout Day Camp and I had the opportunity to attend the first two days with my third oldest boy. On Monday, one of the instructors as giving her spiel about flag ceremonies and asked the question, what do you do if you are having a flag ceremony and you don’t have a flag to salute or even the flag patch on a uniform to salute. . She responded, “You can salute the moon because there was a flag planted on the moon”. I’m sorry, but I’m not about to salute the moon. Guess what? If ever I am in the situation where someone is expecting a flag ceremony and we don’t have a flag… or a flag patch on a uniform to salute, I’m not saluting the moon.
Then on Tuesday, the boys were learning about the solar system when the instructor asked what the name was for the third planet from the sun. Earth! was the unanimous response by the boys. Whereupon we learned that “Earth” is incorrect. The name “Earth” just means dirt and can apply to any planet in the universe that has dirt. The real name is “Tera” and we aren’t Earthlings. We are Terans.
And because it was 2-for-Tuesday, she asked what do we call the “moon” that orbits our planet? Luna! she replied.
In departing from the reality tour, I will continue the apology tour by once again saying “I’m sorry”. I refuse to refer to the Earth as Tera. I will continue to use the word Earthlings and I will not call the moon Luna.
After three non-university-backed studies and nearly twenty interviews, linguists from the farthest reaches of Nevada, North Dakota and Mississippi have come to the conclusion that I ought to be officially categorized into the online/social media "conversation killer" group. I seem to have a knack for posting comments on blogs and Facebook that have a habit of becoming the last comment. Dead last, hence the term conversation killer. What remains a mystery, is why? It's not like I'm always making comments about death, illness, hygiene, taxes, meatloaf, or Justin Bieber. For anyone interested in proving me wrong, feel free to review any of the post you have made and see how many times other people have posted after me. It's quite impressive, from a pessimistic point of view.
