Some kind of gnome or something...

At some point in every Planetarium show I spin the sky overhead. I try to warn them a little bit beforehand, because it can get a little disorienting, for sure. As it happens I remind them that this is what the sky would actually look like if the Earth spun faster. "You'd be dizzy all the time!" I like to tell them. They usually chuckle.

The group I had yesterday had a boy who reacted a bit differently. "That'll be cool," he said. "I'm already dizzy all the time."

"That's kind of unfortunate," I said.

"Eh," he just kind of shrugged. No big deal.

Later in the show I had showed all the planets. I just got to Pluto and was about to mention it's less-than-planet status. I said, "If you guys were here last year I would have talked about another planet..."

At this point they usually realize I am talking about Pluto and shout that out.

In case you're living under a large rock, and don't know it, we have decided to call Pluto a Dwarf Planet (turns out I hate that term -- makes it sound that Pluto is too small to be a planet, not true, just turns out we found out Pluto is part of a crowd, b basically another asteroid belt. If we want to call Pluto a planet still, we'd also have to add dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of planets to the list).

Anyway, dwarf planet. Sheesh.

As I was introduced Pluto one kid yelled out, "It's not a planet, it's an elf planet!"

Ooh. So close, dude. So close.