If You Believe, They Put a Man on the Moon

Forty years ago today one small step was taken by man; one giant leap by mankind.

I was just shy of my seventh birthday and I was bored. My family was visiting my favorite aunt for a week or two. That was usually a lot of fun, but on this evening no one wanted to play with me. There was nothing good on TV. All of the adults were glued to the set, watching something boring, and they kept telling me how lucky I was to be witnessing history. I would've rather been witnessing The Brady Bunch, which hadn't aired yet but looked very promising from the promos.

So I watched - not having any idea what I was seeing.

But I saw.

One of the much older cousins - not one of my cousins, but one of theirs from the other side of the family, had recently gotten engaged. She and her honey wanted to go out and look at the moon. I tagged along, because the moon seemed to be what all the fuss was about. Recently engaged couples love gazing at the moon with a six year old in tow, it's a fact. They told me to see if I could see the flag we'd just seen them plant on TV. They told me to look really hard. When they were sure my attention was fully focused on the moon, they kissed. And it was really gross. I turned up my nose and went back into the house.

I reported that all of this was a fake, because I had looked very carefully and I had seen no evidence of any of this business on the real moon. Everyone laughed and thought that was real cute.

I left that room, too.

What a stupid day.

What an amazing day.