Dear Curiosity:
Listen, I understand you just got there but... we kind of need to know now-ish when we can start packing up Earth, so if you could please get back to us ASAP with exactly when we can bring our stuff up, it would be great. Because things here are getting dicier by the second. You know, like how some of us think it's still okay to hate people because of who they love or what color their skin is and what with Colorado catching on fire and 97 percent of Greenland melting in July. Granted apparently a third or so of Greenland melts every year but virtually the whole thing? That's new. So is this:
June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere -- the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.
I thought that last part would be kind of speaking your language, Mars Rover.
And despite the fact that there have been two mass shootings of total innocents in as many weeks here in the U.S., we STILL really really love our guns and don't want anyone to tell us we can't have every single one of them right away no matter how criminal or crazy we may be. This of course can be justified by the fact that we may at any moment need to form a street militia! A street militia against... Martians? Regardless, I think it may more accurately have to do with how fucking terrified we are all the time. We're a little bit like two-year-olds all no no no no and mine mine mine mine and if you get in my way I. Will. Smash. You. Because I don't know what else to do with my wandering anxiety and desire. Anyway, some of us do some stuff to try to mitigate this in slightly more humane and healthful ways. Some of us take Zoloft and some of us go to yoga. Some of us even do both. There's a bunch of meditating that goes on and now we've got Oprah's Super Soul Sunday. I'm not being sarcastic -- there's really wise stuff on that network! But unfortunately almost no one is watching it such that Oprah apparently needed to, in addition to helping us Supersize our souls, interview David Copperfield and also give LaToya Jackson her own TV show. That said, some of us are trying to eat fewer things laced with cancer but it turns out almost everything is laced with cancer and if it's not now then it will turn out to be soon. Despite this, a bunch of us shop at Whole Foods and Tori Spelling in addition to recycling even grows her own vegetables with the help of her ever-expanding child army! (Another reason we need to be able to get up there -- people are having A LOT of children. Have you checked out Facebook lately?)
The thing is there really are a lot of decent people here trying to make it all better. There are many online petitions being signed and money being raised to help each other (we got so upset with some vicious little bullies we very quickly raised over $700,000 for the lady on the school bus they abused!). We are REALLY good at sports (especially gymnastics and swimming which, you know, Suck it, Gravity!) and internet memes (speaking of which, Curiosity, note to your Daddy, NASA: no Call Me Maybe video? What the eff? Thought you guys worked for America! That guy with the mohawk is not fulfilling his true potential if he doesn't momentarily break into a Dougie and air-sing to The Song Of The Summer in between calling out complicated coordinates) But I digress.
It's not that I'm saying Earth is DEFINITELY melting or we're ABSOLUTELY going to all kill each other or we really don't care THAT much about anyone who isn't somehow very famous. In fact, the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremonies not withstanding, I actually still have a lot of faith in Us. But, we all like to have options and I for one would like to have the option of moving to Mars. Because my current understanding is as follows: Michele Bachmann is an elected official and face-eating is not entirely unheard of and the Kardashians will be in charge for at least three more seasons and Jeremy Lin left New York and Mitt Romney is not only a viable candidate for president he's actually in a dead heat with Barack Obama and also Assad is still murdering the people of Syria. So, could you let us know?
Many thanks and sincerely yours,
Amanda Guinzburg
CC: People of the Earth