Pluto comes clean

John Scalzi lets the cat out of the bag on how Pluto is feeling:

The funny thing about the demotion is that I never actually wanted to be a planet, you know? I was out here minding my own business and then suddenly Clyde Tombaugh is staring at me. And the next thing I know, people start calling me and telling me I'm the newest planet. And I remember saying, I don't know if I want that responsibility. And they said, well, you can't not be a planet now, Walt Disney's already named a character after you. That's really what made me a planet. Not the astronomers, but that cartoon dog. People loved that dog.

Ironically, I'm a cat person.

I'm not going to sue. Who am I going to sue? You think the International Astronomical Union has any money to speak of? There's a reason the most popular event at an astronomer's conference is the free buffet. [. . .]

One thing about something like this is you find out who your friends are. Jupiter couldn't have been nicer during the whole thing. Saturn's been a real sweetheart, too. And Neptune — well, we go way back. We're simpatico, always have been. But some others, eh. Not so nice.

No, I don't want to name names. They know who they are.

Oh, fine. Mercury. I got into the club, and Mercury was suddenly my best buddy. And I thought, well, okay — we're close to the same size, both of us have eccentric orbits, we've both got a 3:2 resonance thing going on. Similarities, you know? So we hang out, get to know each other, fine, whatever. Then the IAU vote comes down and I haven't heard from him since. Like the demotion might be catching or something. He may be right; he's not exactly a brilliant lane-sweeper himself.