About the planetarium

Last weekend Randy and I went to the Huntsville Hamfest in...well...Huntsville, Alabama. It's an annual thing. Last year was the first year I missed it because it was move in day at the dorms. At this year's 'fest I decided I would make up for that lost year. I took the exam for General class and PASSED it. This is a big deal in the ham radio world because I can now make international contacts. The license I had prior to General only allowed me limited access on a more local scale. Now I just need a new radio...

We were looking for something to do on Saturday night after our traditional dinner at Landry's Seafood Kitchen. I whipped out my still new smart phone and looked up "things to do in Huntsville AL". Topping the list was the Saturday night planetarium show at Monte Sano State Park. Stop the search engines! We have a plan!

Monte Sano is just plain cool. If someone told me I had to move to Huntsville, that's the area where I would live (because in this situation I would also be incredibly rich and could afford a house there.) The drive to the park was beautiful and we arrived at the observatory a few minutes before 7 when the doors were scheduled to be opened.

This observatory has been around a LONG time. It's pretty small and unassuming with no frills. As we walked in we were immediately surrounded with the smells and sounds of a grade school field trip. Awesome! The lighting was dim so I wasn't able to get any good photos. It was your typical, smallish planetarium. Domed roof with a couple rows of semi-reclined benches arranged around the big projector thing in the middle. Along the walls were a few display cabinets with models of planets, telescopes, and the sundry items one would expect to see in display cabinets at a planetarium.

We selected a seat on a bench in the second row, discussed the awesomeness of our good fortune at finding such a nerdgasmic way to spend a Saturday evening and waited for the show to begin. While we were waiting we couldn't help but overhear the older guys behind us talking about an ailing mother and her prescriptions. It sounded like they were leaning forward talking right into our ears. I looked about. Nope. No one behind us. Ok. So who's doing all the talking? Randy noticed that the lips of the guys directly across the room from us were moving in sync with the voices we were hearing. No way! They were all the way across the room. Yet we could hear them perfectly. Was there some freaky phenomenon with the acoustics in that domed room? Had they been sitting next to us we couldn't have heard them that clearly. Oh! No! Did they hear us talking about the supreme nerdiness of situation? The field trip smell? The comments about the other patrons? We glanced about, wide-eyed, to see if we could tell if anyone was listening to us and then ceased talking. We waited mutely for the show to start, afraid to speak.

Our hostess for the evening was a woman who taught astronomy to home school students and, from what we could gather by her demeanor, she taught quite enthusiastically. She was about 5'3", medium length gray hair, heavy bosom, and excited. We knew we were in for a treat! Before launching in to the program, she gave a brief history of the place, which I won't get into but it did include Werner Von Braun and his pals, along with a preview of upcoming shows. In September, they will be discussing planets. Planets very far away from the sun. She pointed to the display case and directed our attention to the furthest planet in the solar system, which is not Pluto, as she had pointed out moments before. 

So, I leaned as close to Randy as possible and in my quietest whisper said, "Oh my God, she's going to talk about Uranus."

And that's when things got out of control. I didn't mean for things to get out of control, but sometimes it can't be helped.

Randy lost it. I lost it. The more our hostess talked, the harder we laughed. The harder we laughed, the more we tried to keep it in. The more we tried to keep it in, the weirder the noises we were making. I had to lay down on the bench because I knew that the two guys across from us heard every word I said. Randy had his head down also, and I could feel him shaking with laughter. Between the two of us the whole bench was rocking. The three teenage girls sitting next to me kept giving me that look that only teenage girls can give. The hostess continued her passionate monologue. I prayed that she wouldn't say "Uranus", because if she did I would have to get up and leave. Which made me laugh even harder. And I knew that if I stood up to walk out, I'd pee. No doubt about it. By this time I was crying and wishing I could make myself invisible, wishing for super human bladder control. I tried breathing through my mouth, breathing through my nose, holding my breath (bad idea because I made this loud hiccup when I started breathing again.) I felt the shaking next to me subside a little so I sat back up right in the bench. I looked Randy. Another bad idea. We lost it again. This went on for about 10 minutes. The more I started feeling bad about being such a distraction, the funnier the situation got. We fought to compose ourselves and eventually got it back together. Until the show was over. And we were walking out the door. And I said, "Sorry about the Uranus comment."