A Planetary Lesson

It is a requirement that kids of a certain age must have a fixture in one's room known as a nightlight. You never know... there may be monsters in the closet or one lurking beneath your bed, ready to grab you by the ankles if you dare to go pee in the night. But, ahhhhh, the power of a nightlight. At the mere sight of it, monsters retreat back into the darkest recesses of a child's room. Like vampires, they fear light as much as children fear them.

But not just any nightlight will do, oh no! My kids have super cool nightlights. In the girls' room, a light show shines on the wall. Colors fade from dark blue to purple to pink then green before starting all over again. In the boys' room, a light shines on the ceiling that displays all the planets. When Phoenix didn't like not being able to see the planets on the ceiling from the lower bunk of his bed, Alyssa had the genius idea of plugging the light in on the wall directly beside Phoenix. The planets then brightly lit up the bottom of the upper bunk. Alyssa lied in bed with Nix and they claimed whose planets were whose. Alyssa properly identified many of them and Phoenix, like the parrot he is, mimicked her every word. Then they began assigning other family members their planets.

I could hear them; Alyssa said, "I have Saturn and Phoenix gets Neptune..."

I smiled listening to the kids so sweetly interact at a bedtime. Surely this would be a fond memory for them one day.

Phoenix continued, "and Maginnis get Mars and David has the Anus planet..."

I had been up in the top bunk with Maginnis scratching his back and nearly fell off the bed laughing. Alyssa was the only one that really got the joke so I had to explain that an anus was...well...it's...your butt hole. There. I said it. At that, the whole room fell apart.

While laughing until tears slid out the corners of my eyes, I recalled a friend in college. She had lost her I.D at a night club the night before and had to call the credit card company and report it lost. The customer service rep kindly asked if she new where she lost her card and my friend flatly answered, "Uranus."

Silence on the other end of the phone.

"No. Really. It's in Uranus."

More silence and then a clearing of the throat.

"Lady, it's a bar. Okay? Like the planet..."

Ur-anus. Now that's a funny planet.