No Moon Vacation?

Golly!

Have ya heard the news? The folks at NASA say the United States can't afford to go to the moon by 2020. Evidently this kind of thing is extremely expensive (if you use rockets, of course it will be!) and whether you believe we should be spending money on the space program or not, money's just a little tight pretty much everywhere now.

I have to admit, this disappoints me. I really wanted to go to the moon. I know I'd probably get bored after a week or so, and that I'd most likely come home with a whole bunch of mosquito bites, but I think it'd be worth it. I've put up with that for much less-memorable vacations.

Plus, if the whole U.S. would be there, that means I could hang out with all of you! I guess I can understand how that could become a tad pricey. That's a lot of sunscreen and battery-powered fans to distribute.

Cost aside, busing all 300 million of us up there would probably take a long time just to organize. Everything being computerized, you'd think it'd be a snap. But if there's anything life so far has taught me, it's that there exists a very special type of person who takes pride in being monumentally unteachable. You know the type? They're the ones who stare at the big, bright touch screen displays, with the "Touch Here to Start" button on them, and start randomly deploying their finger everywhere but the button and then get mad when nothing happens. Imagine a whole country's worth of those people trying to purchase moon tickets on one weekend!

And you KNOW there'd be at least one fat kid who'd spill his milkshake before boarding and hold up the line until he got another one.

Once we all got on the bus, it'd be a little better. Except that half of the passengers would bring along giant bottles of water or energy drinks, and we'd have to stop all the time for them to use restrooms. And it's not like the moon just a couple hours away. We're all going to be on that bus for quite a long time, and those bathroom stops are only going to drag it out.

We'd probably have to switch drivers a couple of times too. As long as they don't ask me to drive and read the map! I'm sure I could handle a big bus, but I'm not exactly Captain Cook when it comes to navigation. I tend to daydream and miss exits and turns, so someone would have to keep an eye on those things for me. Otherwise, who knows where we'd end up?

I read somewhere that the moon doesn't have as much gravity lying around as the Earth does, so it'd probably be real nice to stretch in. I mean, when you're on a long trip, and you finally get to where you're going, doesn't it feel good to stand up straight and stretch a bit? I bet it'd be fun on the moon, what with the low gravity and all.

Of course, all of us who didn't go to the bathroom at every single stop along the way will all have to go when we get to the moon, and there'll be a giant line.

I'd probably take my camera and wander off from the main group. If you stick with the group on these things, you end up spending half your time just standing in line waiting to see whatever you're in line to see. And it's usually something you don't care about anyway, made even less attractive by all the sticky little kids who have touched it. The Apollo landers would all be covered with Jolly Rancher goo and ice cream dribblings within hours.

Forget all that. I'll be exploring some craters, thank you very much. Maybe I'll find one that looks like a little happy face, and I'll take a picture of it for my blog. Or I'll write "Ambient Moronics" in the lunar soil with a moon stick and take a picture of that. It'd make a good header, once I got back home to Photoshop it a bit.

I would also bring a pine cone to leave up there. I really don't have a good reason for wanting to do this. I just think it'd be funny to leave a pine cone on the moon. There probably aren't any moon squirrels to eat it, so it'd stay there for thousands of years. Maybe millions! I'd have to throw it pretty far though. Otherwise someone would find it and pick it up.

By the time we'd toured the place, it would be getting pretty late. We'd split into smaller groups, like by family or state or something, and probably have some bonfires. At least that's what I would do. We could have a bonfire and talk about things. People are weird, though. Even if they're on vacation, where they're supposed to be enjoying the sights and sounds and low gravity, they'd still spend most of their time complaining. They'd sit around the bonfire and exchange stories about how long the lines were and how the bathrooms needed more paper towels and fewer of those electric hand dryers.

I would roast marshmallows, of course, but I bet I would drop most of them in the fire. That always happens to me.

It'd be fun, though. The ride back home would seem to go a lot quicker because I wouldn't be so excited to get to a new place, and I would have all of my pictures to look over.

If I remembered to put my memory card in the camera, that is.