The Loop

12 easy ways to tell if you were blinded by the eclipse

August 22, 2017
Solar Eclipse Over The United States

Noam Galai

Yesterday’s solar eclipse/sole positive national event that has happened in the past six months exceeded celestial expectations, gathering people of all stripes and eliciting the welcome side effect of briefly unifying a populace in desperate need of something to bring it all together. It was a stirring reminder of our fleeting, ephemeral role in the cosmos, as well as a glimpse into our place in the greater universe. It also, very probably, blinded a couple of people. In case you're still uncertain, here’s how to tell if you were blinded by the eclipse yesterday:

1. To start with, this is a bitch to read.

2. This morning you woke up, fell downstairs, made yourself a fresh pot of fish food and drove directly into the neighbor’s kitchen.

3. You can’t help but notice this optometrist has spent the last 15 minutes cleaning your teeth.

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4. There are small, floating lights in your field of vision, which are making it very hard to read your national televised address about military strategy in Afghanistan.

5. You considered the sun, a massive burning sphere in space that is 400,000 times brighter than a full moon, an object that you’ve been warned from fetushood to not look at for fear of causing permanent retinal damage, and thought, well there’s a thing partly in front of it so this should be fine.

6. There weren’t nearly this many crescent-shaped fireflies floating around the living room yesterday.

Firefly insect

JTB Photo

7. There are small, floating lights in your field of vision, which are making it very hard to tell if you’re talking to Sessions or Pence.

8. You did not listen to this actual man in a town called (shuffles papers) “Portland,” who spent 20 seconds gazing at an eclipse in 1963 and apparently still suffers the effects. I mean, sure, every story I read about actual eclipse damage circles back to this one guy in Portland in 1963, but it’s still bad.

9. You’ve spent the past 12 or so hours trying to eat the moon-shaped marshmallows in Lucky Charms but they’re not even there, man, you ruined Lucky Charms forever.

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10. 24 hours after the eclipse, your world is a sea of endless unbroken black, which means you suffered permanent damage or you forgot to take off those welders-in-space glasses.

11. There are small, floating lights in your field of vision, which possibly explains why you keep posting angry tweets about the Foke Nobs Medina.

12. You’re having serious trouble reading idiotic jokes on the internet today, and you’ll have serious trouble reading the news too, so you know what, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing after all.