Just when I thought life was getting complicated enough, our whole world has been turned upside down with the recent change in the Zodiac!

Now instead of the twelve signs we’ve all been used to for 3000 years – you know, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio et al, they went and made a thirteenth sign and shifted all the dates around.

The thirteenth sign is called Ophiuchus, and you are an Ophiuchus if your birthday is November 29 to December 17. Don’t feel too smug if you’re not in that date range because they changed all the other dates as well, so while you were sleeping soundly, your horoscope sign may have changed overnight.

I don’t mean to be an alarmist or anything, but I can see some serious problems with all this. Clearly there’s going to be a large segment of the population with an instant identity crisis, flooding the offices of the psychiatrist around the world.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Think of all the forms we are going to have to fill out and all the social network websites we are going to have to update with our new zodiac sign.

Sure, we live in the computer age, so we could hope the IT departments around the world could do a massive system conversion for us, but then we’re just putting ourselves through another Y2K crisis, aren’t we.  And besides, all the IT departments have a ginormous work backlog of forty-eleven years, so I don’t see that helping much.

I can see international productivity plummeting – and just when the economy seemed to be slowly recovering. I don’t know about you, but I’m loading up on food, guns, water and precious metals to survive until civilization as we know it can be restored again.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but there is every indication there is a hidden agenda here by some nerdy scientists (probably dysfunctional Virgos) so they could finally get a date.  I mean, the evidence is plain as day.

It seems that said scientists – astronomers, actually, at the Minnesota Planetarium, made up some observation that the earth’s alignment in space has shifted nearly 23 degrees due to the gravitational pull between the moon and the earth.

Hey, this is suspect already. I don’t know about where you live, but the moon is coming up in the same place it always has here in Orlando.

Then they go on to say this affects the alignment of the constellations throughout the year, so they need to come up with a new sign Ophiuchus for November 29 through December 17.

Yeah, right.

And I bet every one of them is telling all the women they’re an Ophiuchus down at the pick-up bars. Just listen to this.

 They say those whose birthdays fall under this sign are said to be knowledge seekers (hmmmm) and could make good architects and scientists (gee, nothing suspicious here).  Ophiuchuns like to dress in bright colors (sure, like all those different colored felt tip pens they have in their shirt pocket in the nerdy little plastic holder), tend to have big families (they wish, if they could ever get a date) and leave their parents’ homes earlier than others (I think they said this just to throw everybody off). 

And according to Love-astrology.com, many people tend to be jealous of Ophiuchuns because of how well they progress through life (yeah – this one takes the cake – tell the girls how successful you are and how you have BIG potential).

So you see what I mean. This is a clear-cut conspiracy.

We called an emergency meeting here at WoodChips Central and the current opinion is we’re sticking with the real, true Zodiac, although Elmer and Woody, who are both now an Ophiuchus, are leaning more toward the new one because they think it will make them more popular – particularly after they heard Brad Pitt is one (go figure).

Anyhow, not that we endorse this or anything, but if you’re curious about the new Zodiac, here it is.

So there you have it. I hope it doesn’t traumatize you too much. We debated over whether to write about it because we like to stay upbeat here at the WoodChips. But we felt it was our journalistic responsibility to let our readers know.

And don’t lose hope. I fully expect to see full Senate and House investigations into this on Capitol Hill. This is just the kind of thing our politicians really like to get into. After all, jobs, the economy, deficit reduction and other trivialities just won’t stack up to this.

So let us know how you’re holding up. We’re all concerned here at WoodChips Central. Just click on the title of this post, and send us your thoughts in the comments box that will appear below.

Hang in there and Godspeed– J. Daniel (formerly a Virgo, now a traumatized and confused Leo)

P.S. Other famous people besides Brad Pitt that are now an Ophiuchus are Katie Holmes, Milla Jovovich, Jay-Z, Taylor Swift and Brendan Fraser.