I don't want to live in a world with five oceans

If you listened to today’s show, you heard me tell the story of how my world was turned upside down while playing trivia last night.

In case you missed it, here’s what happened: I was playing a trivia game that asked me to name the five oceans. I named four oceans — the four I was taught in school and have known my entire life — and then called the question stupid because there is not a fifth ocean. I was sure of it. A fifth ocean? That’s nonsense. What kind of trivia game doesn’t know there are only four oceans? Get outta here with this tomfoolery. Don’t you insult my Earth like that.

Then I was introduced to something called the Southern Ocean and I’ve never been so blindsided. This Southern Ocean thing is an actual fifth ocean, allegedly, and now everything I learned in school is a lie. I don’t know which way is up right now. I don’t know what to believe. I put my blood, sweat and tears into my West Broadway Elementary School education, and now you’re going to tell me it was all for nothing? You’re going to tell me that when my teacher stood in front of a classroom full of eager young minds and said there are four oceans, that I would later find out it wasn’t true? What’s next, huh? Did they make up gravity? Is long division a lie too? Was George Washington even a real person?

I thought we were past this after Pluto was ripped from my nine-planet solar system. I’m just now getting over that one, okay? But the lying didn’t stop there because we now have a fifth ocean and that is unacceptable to me. I refuse to acknowledge the Southern Ocean and its make-believe waters. It’s a sea of lies and fake news.

Read this nonsense Google told me when I demanded the truth:

The Southern Ocean is the ‘newest’ named ocean. It is recognized by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names as the body of water extending from the coast of Antarctica to the line of latitude at 60 degrees South. The boundaries of this ocean were proposed to the International Hydrographic Organization in 2000. However, not all countries agree on the proposed boundaries, so this has yet to be ratified by members of the IHO. The U.S. is a member of the IHO, represented by the NOS Office of Coast Survey.

What a load of crap. I hope the IHO’s stupid Southern Ocean dries up.

I want to live in a four-ocean world and I hope you feel the same. I ride or die with the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic.