All The Reasons Not To Care About The Solar Eclipse This Afternoon

By Emily Cutler | Lists | August 21, 2017 |

By Emily Cutler | Lists | August 21, 2017 |

Not sure if you heard about this, guys, but today is a BIG GODDAMN DEAL. Apparently at some point today, the moon will move across the sun, and block out some portion of its light. This hasn’t happened in a long time, and won’t happen for much longer. (Sometimes this is where I link to articles which expand on the things I’m discussing, but this is all the explanation the eclipse deserves.) People are losing their shit. Some of them are planning weekend or day trips in order to get a better view of this. People we love and cherish. And on one hand, I’m all “Follow your bliss. You do you, y’all. Plus I hear Eugene, OR is lovely this time of the year.”

But on my other, much bigger hand (it’s a medical condition, don’t ask), I’m all “Her?” Because, guys, I don’t get it.

1) The thing is that the sun is going away, yes? The sun does this on the daily. It’s called “nighttime.”

2) Nighttime doesn’t make you blind.

3) It made this happen.

And there just aren’t enough showers.

4) Again back to the traveling. I like traveling. I think it’s good to get out and start exploring. But I’m not sure if this is the chance to do that exploring. Sublist:

A) You have to travel to places like Carbondale, IL. Don’t.

B) It’s going to take a number of hours to get to a place to watch something for twenty minutes. Is that a good cost/benefit ratio in your opinion?

C) Not to mention, the traveling isn’t required to see the eclipse. It’s to see the eclipse better. So in my case, it would be ten hours of driving in order to see a twenty minute event fifteen-percent better than I can see it right here. (Or fifteen-percent better than I would see it if I’d bought those glasses, and I didn’t, so I’m not seeing anything because aforementioned blindness.) Again, is that investment worth the payoff?

4) As far as I can tell, the only truly awesome thing to come out of the eclipse is this, which means at best, the eclipse is awesome-adjacent. I barely get out of bed for awesome-adjacent.

In short, the only way I care about this is the extent to which it impacts my lunch. I will once again lead by example by focusing on the truly important things in life. Which reminds me, I have to decide what to eat so if you’ll excuse me, I have to devote an hour and forty-five minutes to Yelp. Like a normal person.