I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.

The stuff they teach you in high school is such shit. Algebra and lit crit and earth sciences. You want it in a nutshell? You will never need algebra ever in your life, when you’re 15 everything you read translates out to other people having sex, and earth sciences is the new black. Why didn’t they ever teach us anything we could use, like managing money or what to do when you’re girlfriend has locked herself in the bathroom with a home pregnancy test? (Run like hell, brother.) Or how about this- if you’ve been drinking and get pulled over by the cops, sneaking a couple of pennies in your mouth WON’T neutralize the alcohol in your breath and you’ll blow a .00. That would have been useful information.

Earth Sciences was the most worthless, and the easiest to pass. All you needed to pass earth sciences was the ability to stay awake and look either earnest or pissed off. Every answer on the test- ‘Shit is fucked up.’ You could say stuff like ‘fucked up’ in earth sciences class because that’s the way the teacher wanted you to react. Hurray class, here’s an A+ to my most indignant pupil! And they showed all those spooky movies that started out with an angry red sun and ended by asking you what you were going to do to save the planet. I was 15. The first thing I was going to do was get laid. Maybe after, if Suzie’s parents were still out of town and I wasn’t taking a nap in her panty drawer.

Earth science teachers hated everything, but they especially hated the future. They loved talking about it though, because that was when her students would all be burned to death from the sun or drown in some tidal surge. Those crazy bitches where the old testament profits of the ‘burbs, I Levittown, chapter 1 verse 1. I always thought she was describing the death of millions of people who were too stupid to move a few feet one way or the other. Too hot? Go inside. Tides coming in? Walk toward car. No need to hurry. The earth sciences teachers weren’t the brightest bulbs in the pack, but it was the ‘70s and if it was easy to pass earth sciences, it was just as easy to get a job teaching it. Today they’re probably home schooling Himalayan whistle kids in yoga and interpretive dance.

You know what I say about the environment? Fuck it. It did fine before we got here and it’s going to be fine a few years after we all blow ourselves to bits. In fact, you are a billion times more likely to be killed in a missile strike than you are to drown at high tide. Nature is a survivor. Don’t believe me? Guess what Hiroshima is today? A park. A freakin’ park covered in trees. Those above ground tests in Nevada? Las Vegas. Nature’s going to be fine.

But people say, ‘Well, you just HAVE to care about the environment!!’ Sure, I do. Insofar as I want it to still be there when I go to my car tomorrow morning. Hey! Pippi Longsuffering! I live in an urban center and eat at McDonald’s! Nature’s got no place in my life. Nature’s what I try to avoid stepping in on my way to work and I ate a fruit salad once and had the runs for a week.

I still can’t get my checkbook to balance.