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My husband Rob reminded me during dinner that this was the night that asteroid YU55 was set to pass within 300,000 kilometers of Earth, which is somewhere between us and the moon. In human comprehension terms, this isn't all that close, but when you remember that astronomers are mostly just estimating an asteroid's trajectory, it's a bit concerning.
"So if it hits us," I asked him, "would that just suck for whoever happened to be at ground zero, or would it be end of the world as we know it stuff?"
"That last part," he replied. "Do you remember what the leading theory is on dinosaur extinction?"
Which is not a changing of the topic in our house, the train has not left the station yet.
"An asteroid strike," I said.
"Yep," he said. "It'll be like that. Did you know that there's new evidence to support the fact that dinosaurs possibly asphyxiated?"
"What's that?" nine year old daughter pipes up.
"Strangled," her Dad explains and then stops himself from continuing with, "and this is probably not appropriate supper conversation."
After the meal, Rob retreated to the office to check on YU55. There was a website with a countdown where all manner of geekdom reigned.
"You mean it hasn’t passed by yet?" I asked.
"Nope, sometime in the next half hour. Meantime, I've got kitchen tile to lay," he said as he headed out of the room.
We are at exactly the year anniversary of the demolition of the entire front half of the main floor of our house to make room for a new larger kitchen and to open the kitchen to the living room. We are at "tiling the kitchen floor" stage, which should not be confused with "mission nearly accomplished" stage because the living room is nothing more than drywall, subfloor and the faint outline of a fireplace.
"But Sweetie, if the asteroid hasn’t gone past yet, we don't know if it will actually miss us," I said. "Do you really want to spend the last minutes of your life tiling the kitchen floor?"
He walked slowly back into the office and encircled me with his arms.
"We could go upstairs," he whispered.
"What about the child?" I said.
"Well now that's awkward," he said. "Perhaps we should all snuggle into a group hug on the sofa and watch Barbie's Christmas with her."
"For our last moments on Earth?"
He kissed my neck before heading back to the kitchen.
"Tile it is."
