Uber Moon

While I’m yet feeling the effects of our most recent super moon, I recall the first time I heard a reference to something other than a regular, monthly run of the mill full moon.

The precise year escapes me, but it was a Saturday night because we were watching Hockey Night in Canada and the late game was coming from Calgary. During Ron MacLean’s preamble, he mentioned the full moon was in fact a rare super moon, so called as it would appear fourteen per cent larger due to its closer-than-usual proximity to Earth. The accompanying camera shot was of a huge golden disc hanging low over the city skyline. It was impressive, all right; and that was compared to any number of the robust harvest moons I’ve seen in my lifetime. I’d never heard of a super moon until that night.

Now it seems we get them all the time.

On hearing that this April’s full moon was a super one, I asked Ter, “Didn’t we just have one of those?”

She thought so but wasn’t wholly certain of when. “Was it in January?”

Maybe. The wolf moon? Wasn’t there a blue moon in January, too? A blue wolf super moon? There are so many anomalies that “anomaly” is now synonymous with “routine”.

April’s moon was extra-extra-special (not a typo) because it was not only a super moon (appearing seventeen per cent larger than usual, and a full three per cent larger than the HNIC super moon), it was a pink super moon. Not genuinely pink, the experts were quick to add lest a torrent of complaints flood social media when the hue failed to meet mass expectations of fuchsia, but pink because it coincided with the blooming of a particular spring flower whose name I don’t remember.

I actually thought it looked a tad rosier than usual, but I may have imagined it:

Anyway, it seems that almost every full moon has become a super one, which reminded me of an online survey I once took after making a purchase at a housewares and home décor shop. Through the course of the survey, the questions were geared toward elevating my experience beyond the mere purchase of sought-after goods. “What can we do to make your next visit a great experience?”

“You can’t,” I replied. “I got what I went for.”

After asking where the chain fit in my preferred shopping outlets (they were third), came the question: “How can we become your favourite source for housewares/home décor?”

“You can’t,” I replied, “unless you put more staff at the checkout and fewer staff on the floor. I was in the line up to pay for longer than it took to find my candles.”

Not that my comment had anything to do with it, but the chain’s local outlet is now closed, as is that of the second shop in my top three.

What has this to do with the super moon, you ask? Nothing ... except I am bewildered and slightly annoyed by the current era’s insistence on making everything bigger and brighter and shinier. Once “super” becomes the norm, it ceases to be a big deal.