“The New York Times is trying to guilt-trip us into not being blasé about the solar eclipse,” my husband remarked the other day.

I am so blasé that I will be in the dentist’s chair at the transformative moment. I will not be on a field trying to nab some elbow room in the zone of totality, or on a congested highway trying to get to said field. I will not be worrying about whether back-ordered special eclipse-viewing glasses will arrive on time, or whether the pair I’ve scored is part of a blindness-inducing scam hawked by some ruthless entrepreneur. I will not be dealing with pinholes in cardboard and reverse shadows on pieces of paper. I still remember those DIY projectors from childhood, in which the image that was safe to view was about the size and impressiveness of the dinged piece of paper that emerges from a three-hole punch.

I know many people who are more excited than I am, and who have made meticulous plans. Some people we met at a Bed-and-Breakfast several months ago had booked a house in South Carolina years ago for the event. My brother, who is excited but not a meticulous planner, thinks he will get in his car in Western Massachusetts around midnight and drive to a lake in Tennessee. He expects to have the waterfront all to himself. I expect him to not even make it to the lake.

“What about traffic?” I point out.

“Traffic?” he asks blankly.

We go back and forth for some time about this wondrous cosmic spectacle.

“Don’t you think it will be fantastic to go from brightness to total darkness?” my brother asks.

“I already experienced that on the evening of November 8,” I reply. For the record, “fantastic” is not the word that springs to mind.

Still, I am not entirely immune from the pull of the heavens. I have clipped out an item on Nova’s coverage, which promises to offer more than pinhole viewing or blindness. I may even throw a colander in the backseat of the car in case my dentist is running late, or running outside to view the eclipse. I picked up this tip listening on NPR to Andrew Fraknoi, professor emeritus of astronomy at Foothill College and author of When the Sun Goes Dark.  He advises holding a colander (minus the pasta) over your head with your back to the sun, then watching the shower of tiny eclipses appearing on the pavement.

“You’ll be the hero of your neighborhood,” Fraknoi enthuses.

That’s me, hero of the neighborhood—if the neighborhood is well outside the zone of totality, and as hassle-averse as I am.

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What are your plans for the solar eclipse?