Flat Earthers Got Nothing On Us
August’s 24 birthday was on 9/29/2020. Originally Arden, Marshall, and I planned to surprise August, Aspen, and Kid by having Arden fly in from Colorado for her birthday. The plan was for Arden to fly in on the 24th and then we would hike the Smoky Mountains on the weekend. The problem was that August had to have surgery to get some hardware removed from her arm. She had a sledding accident a few years ago and recently it had started causing problems. The reason she had to get her surgery directly before her birthday was that on 10/6/2020 August will be moving to Pittsburgh. As a result of the surgery we had to keep the weekend pretty low-key, and just by sheer coincidence, everybody found out about the surprise.
Upon hearing about Arden's return for the weekend, Ben, August’s boyfriend decided to come to town from Pittsburgh to celebrate as well. We had an amazing weekend and did a ton of insane stuff. However, the thing I'm going to focus on now is an argument that pinned August and me against Arden and Aspen!
It started when we were all sitting around the kitchen table talking about small hikes in the area. Someone made a comment about Aspen not being an outdoorsy person. Her defense was that it wasn't that she wasn't outdoorsy it was just that she didn't like Ohio’s spin on nature because it's all the same.
“Well, all nature is the same,” I replied.
“What? No, it's not. Is a hill the same as a mountain?” Aspen retorted.
“Yes, they are!” I said matter-of-factly. “Generally speaking, both are mounds of earth that build to the sky. The difference is one is bigger than the other!”
Aspen and I went back and forth, escalating the conversation with each word until we started talking about the ocean. Aspen said that the ocean is different from the rest of nature and I said, “The ocean is not part of the earth though!”
“Yes, it is!” Arden and Aspen exclaimed.
“Guys,” I explained, “If you take water off of the Earth it's just the crust! The water is on top of the earth!”
I will admit, while I was arguing my point, it was not as clear as it was in the quote above. It is clearer here because I’ve had a week to think about this. Even though I wasn't saying exactly what I wanted to say, August still understood my point and took my side. We spent about 15 minutes arguing back and forth before August, abandoned me because she got tired of fighting!
Without August to back me up, the other two won the argument, at least that is until Arden knocked a cup of water onto the kitchen floor. “See!” I proclaimed pointing to the water on the floor, “The water is on top of the floor!” This reignited the fight and after about five more minutes we figured out that we were saying the same thing, We were just defining what the word “Earth” meant differently.
Arden and Aspen were talking about the Earth as an ecosystem and August and I were strictly talking about the globe. After a week of not trying to think about this incident, I realized how this argument serves as a great depiction of autism. When talking to people on the spectrum, sometimes if what they are saying doesn't make sense at first, it could be exactly what you are thinking!
Have A Greattastic Day And Be safe!
J. Mitchie Ulibarri
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