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.