Today is my 25th birthday, which means it is, unfortunately, my birthday on Super Tuesday, which is a very bad day! Everyone is yelling and nobody seems to know what the hell is going on. There’s probably a global crisis concerning coronavirus, but the mass media is either too racist or too hyperbolic to accurately gauge the situation. Amidst it all, there’s also a two-mile-wide asteroid hurtling dangerously close to the earth, which, were it to hit us head-on, would likely cause the collapse of civilization and extinction of the human race. Seems ideal!
CNN reports that the asteroid, which NASA scientists have dubbed 52768 (1998 OR2), was first seen back in 1998. On April 29, however, it will fly within almost four million miles of Earth. I’m told this is very far away. But I’ve seen those Youtube videos where they put a million little Earths into the very big Sun, which fits a million more times into an even larger star. I won’t be fooled!
If anything, moments like this are incredible reminders that nothing means anything, and all of this will soon cease to exist. Our lives on Earth aren’t even a millisecond in grand, cosmic timetable! Just the other day, I learned that the Andromeda galaxy will collide with the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years, likely obliterating everything into itty-bitty space dust. That’s tomorrow, in space years! What difference does this extremely hellish Super Tuesday, or even my extremely unimportant birthday, make to something like an asteroid that’s just chilling on its way to possibly punch a hole through the Earth’s crust?
So while it might be my birthday, it’s also not, because none of this is real anyway. We’re all just hurtling through the darkness of space on a rock that can barely sustain life, at the mercy of cosmic supergiants that will obliterate any trace of human existence in a mere billions of years. I’ve already screamed and fought and punched my way through the election cycle. If the asteroid wants to hit us—I say, let it!
Correction: Because I am practically ancient, and my eyesight is already failing me, I mistakenly called the big bundle of space rock hurtling towards the Earth an “astroid.” Please, laugh! The birthday mockery will hopefully make me stronger.