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“Thrilling,” “beautiful” or “historic.” That’s how a lot of people described the total eclipse of the sun that happened this past Monday. Me? I described it as a nightmare. Sure, I was really excited when I first heard about it.

“Oooooh, an eclipse?” I said, jumping up and down with glee. “What on Earth is an eclipse?”

As soon as my friends told me what it was, I immediately lost all enthusiasm. I mean, the sky getting dark during the day? That’s weird. Weird and stupid. And also dumb. I’m not even quite convinced it’s science, frankly.

Okay, I’ll be honest with you guys … I may be a little bit afraid of the dark. I think it all started when my cousin locked me in the dryer as a kid. I go to bed at 4:30 p.m. to make sure I don’t even see the sunset, let alone be caught in the dark.

So, upon hearing the TRUTH about the eclipse, I decided to take action. I was not going to be scared of the dark anymore.

I started by simulating what the solar eclipse was going to look like. To do this, I locked myself in a closet with a colander on my head before turning off the lights. Then, I shone a flashlight at the colander to simulate the sun before covering a hole with my finger to simulate the moon covering it. This all went great before I started hyperventilating and couldn’t get out of the closet. (Apparently, I locked it from the outside?) I lost steam pretty quickly after that. My roommate needed the colander back to make a salad, anyway, so it was fine.

Then, for the first time ever, I actually turned the lights off to go to bed. Sure, I still had my Smurfs night light (it’s always comforting having Smurfette looking at me with her dead eyes), but I actually made it to 9:30 p.m. — five whole hours — before I turned my lamp back on! Pretty exciting stuff. I may have been getting up and checking the closet for killer dolls every couple of minutes (I accidentally watched “M3GAN” thinking it was the “Barbie” movie), but I’m pretty proud of myself.

When April 8 rolled around, I was ready. I slept with the light off for a few minutes. I had worn a colander. No one was more prepared than me.

Or at least, that’s what I thought before I put on those eclipse glasses. I tried them on inside, and you know what happened? EVERYTHING WAS DARK. I mean, pitch black. Apparently, you can’t see out of eclipse glasses? Did anyone think to warn me about this? No. If someone had warned me, maybe I wouldn’t have thrown up and passed out on the floor of the Schine Student Center in shock and fear.

Turns out, I slept through totality. But all in all, I survived the 2024 solar eclipse. And I only peed myself a little bit. And isn’t that something to be proud of?

Published on April 10, 2024 at 11:41 pm

Contact Sarah: sswells@syr.edu