Pluto is People Too

Humanling and I were sitting at our local breakfast digs. She was enjoying the Yes and Know magic pen book that I gave her. I was probably going through my weekend Bag o' Busy's to see what would occupy my mind while we waited for our food.

The place can be a little subwayish on the personal space. Weekends are crowded and strangers can be thrown together like family. Possibly even arguing like so.

The woman next to Humanling was clearly annoyed beyond belief as she read her newspaper. She was ranting to her husband in a voice that must be normally reserved for the toliet seat being up yet again. She asked him angrily, "Who CARES about Pluto being a planet or not! It's so far away, it doesn't matter, how can people CARE about this!" She repeated it a couple times until finally, defenseless little Pluto needed my chivalry. All 95 pounds of it. "Step aside little planet being", I whispered to the P-Rock in my head. And then out loud said, "I care."

The woman needed to be netted. I lit her on fire apparently with my New Agey earnest. I should have been holding a few blind kittens and pulling a thorn out of a lion's paw as I stared at her.

She turned on me without a beat. "HOW can ANYONE CARE about whether or not its a planet? It doesn't matter!" She didn't need a cause, just a person to in which to divide and conquer with that sharp, condescending tone.

With her husband by my side trying very hard to disperse his matter into tiny particles that would vibrate at a much higher speed, in which to become invisible, I simply said, "How does anyone care about anything in this world that is unnecessary? Such as cellphones and things like that?"

She eventually went back to her paper muttering.

I looked at Humanling and chuckled. "I didn't know Pluto could make a person so ANGRY" I said to her.

And then, just as fast as Tornado Anti P-Rock started, it ended. We sat pretending not to be facing each other the whole time, not to hear each other's conversations and definitely not to be caught staring menacingly at the other at all.

Maybe I have identified with the planet-non-planet because I have always been the tiniest in my class. Maybe because I am a Scorpio and this is our little ruling King (besides Mars - somehow we were crowned with two planets. We share Mars with Aries...Pluto is strictly all ours.)

I can take it if you want to reduce dinky little Pluto to the status of a pet rock. But I can't help but wonder, if even our little neighbor P-rock has some status of perfection in the universe....its place that ensures our livelihood on this planet. Who are we to say if everything in our galaxy would be aligned Just So without it. And would we be here without its influence (symbiotic or not) on its galactical neighbor, Neptune, thus influencing Uranus (har har har...ok....let it go), thus influencing Saturn, etc.

File under If A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings In China.