The Lunar Deed

Yesterday, I noticed this hanging on Doris' wall.

So, out of curiosity, I asked, "What is Lunar Deed?"

Doris flatly replied, "It means I own an acre of land."

"Where?" I prompted.

"On the moon."

I looked at her expressionless face and burst out laughing. "Oh my gosh, you're lying!" I thought she was being sarcastic, but she wasn't. She was dead serious.


"No, I'm not," she said in the same flat tone. "Go ahead and look at it."

So, still laughing, I went over to the frame and stared at it. As I processed the writing, I realized it was actually a cert acknowledging that she owned an acre of land on the moon, which made the whole thing a lot more unbelievable. I thought it was one of those realistic-looking certs from Disneyland or something after taking a space ride.

"You really own... an acre of land... on the moon?" I was trying hard not to laugh. But the corners of my mouth were turned up and a grin was about to break across my face.

"Yeah, Sohji bought it for me."

"But... why would someone buy an acre of land on the moon?"

"He knows I like astronomy, so he thought it'd be cool if I owned some land on the moon."

That made me laugh again. I didn't mean to, but I couldn't help myself. It'd be like if Ming bought me an acre of land on the sun, or on Jupiter. It's not something you hear people telling each other every day.

"I just bought an acre of land in Japan!"
"That's great! I bought an acre of land on the moon!"
*awkward silence, followed by a "Yeah, right. Don't mock me." scoff*

Okay, well, maybe not everyone's a cynic like myself.

But Doris looked so serious about the whole thing, I couldn't stop laughing.

"So, are you going to move there?" I asked.

"Just because someone owns a land somewhere, it doesn't mean they have to move there."

"So, you're going to rent it out?" I was going to add that it'd be cool if she had alien tenants, but I was laughing so hard, my stomach hurt.

By now, she was shaking her head, sighing and saying something along the lines of, "I'm going to tell Sohji and he's going to be so upset that you hurt his feelings."

What? Okay, okay. Calm down. Let's just... breathe and process the whole thing.

Sohji bought Doris an acre of land on the moon.

That's actually a really cool gift. No, seriously. It is. I'd never heard of anyone buying land on the moon. I didn't even know you could purchase anything on the moon. That's great. It's such a sweet gift! If he bought it for her, he could have metaphorically meant: "I love you to the moon and back."
And I felt bad for laughing.

I apologized, and it took her a while to let the grudge go. But yeah, we're past that now. I mean, owning a Lunar Deed is so cool, it's out of this world.