Women are from Mars, Men are from Uranus

When I was in sixth grade, I had to write a report on one of the nine planets in our Solar System. There were more than nine of us in the class, so some planets would obviously have to be repeated.

Except one planet.

Yes, that one.


And guess where I was on “planet picking day”?

Home sick.

So, lucky me, I had the honor of writing a long report on … Uranus. Get it? Uranus? Like “Your” “Anus”? I’ll tell you one thing about sixth graders, their sense of humor is not quite refined or well developed yet at that age. Needless to say, the day that I read my report aloud to the class was a day where "Myanus" was clenched tightly with stress. Here are some choice quotes from an in depth expose on our most misunderstood planet; gems I had to say aloud to a class of 16 sixth graders (one of which was a girl who I was head over heels in love with).

“Uranus is named after a Greek God.”
“Uranus is composed differently than the gas giants Jupiter and Neptune.”
“Uranus has 27 smaller moons circling it in orbit.”
“Uranus has a ring system similar to Saturn’s.”
“Uranus has existed for millions of years.”
“Uranus is icy cold and dark most of the time.”
“Uranus has its own weather system.”
“Uranus was at one time thought to be composed of moss and algae, not rock and ice, but that has since been proven false by satellites with deep probes and high resolution imagery.”

I could go on, but you can already see that this report did not go well. I got a sympathy “B” from my teacher because he knew that I drew the worst planet for my report out of the planet hat. Woe was me. I got through it, though, and I felt a tremendous sense of relief. I figured I would never have to read another report about Uranus out loud to anyone again.

I was right, the planets were history. I guess the administrators at my school felt that we had enough planet knowledge to attack the world with. Then came “World Culture” in seventh grade. Our class was assigned “South Africa” for a series of “Day in the Life” reports about what life was like for a seventh grader in South Africa plus general facts about South African cities and towns. We drew South African cities from a hat. I was there that day to actually pick my own city but figured I couldn’t do any wrong here.

Then I looked at my slip of paper.

Buttville