Now here's something you don't see every day. A habitable planet in the neighborhood. 120 trillion miles sounds like a ways, but it's not that much further to Indiana. You have to look at it in light-years: it's only twenty. That's a piece of cake. Speaking of which, I hope they serve snacks on the flight.

All the buzz over the discovery of another earth is understandable, given real estate prices on this one. But already folks have started chastising those with dreams of the ultimate white flight and the prospects of a whole planet with Applebee's on every corner.

What if this potentially habitable planet is already inhabited? Well, bring your pretty beads and flea-infested blankets along to trade for swaths of land! Everybody wins!

Truth is, the planet orbits a red dwarf, so chances are the inhabitants would be phlegmatic. It is partly the brightness of our sun that makes us such a sanguine species. Sluggish and antisocial, the New Earthlings, as we might call them, would find us unbearable—our shiny spacesuits. Our cries of "To Infinity and Beyond!" Our high-fives and mawkish laughter.

Repulsed, they would schlump off to forests or caves without a fight, leaving us to our Applebee's. The big question is who will bus the tables and do the dishes.