The app said clear. It said clear all week. You packed the car, drove the hour out past the last streetlight, got the scope levelled and the eyepieces laid out in the cold, and then, on schedule, the cloud arrived.
THE FORECAST is arched across an engraved star atlas plate in the wide capitals of a scholarly chart. Along the ruled footline below sits the only honest reading anyone in this hobby has ever had: CLOUDY, AS ALWAYS. The joke is drawn completely straight, a solid chart ring, a refractor pointed up, and one long band of cloud drifting across the lens. No comic font, no wink. The design wraps both sides, so it reads whichever way it is picked up.
Only one kind of person finds this funny, and they will find it very funny, which makes it the rare astronomy gift that proves the giver was paying attention. Clear skies. Any night now.
