F is for Floozy

Floozy and Other Stories was my third book. A collection of my various humorous (I hope) essays from newspapers, magazines, online zines, and other publications. Here's one of the essays in the book.)

Happy Dirt Day!

Every April 22 we celebrate Earth Day. A day meant to make you feel guilty because – let’s be honest – you’re an untidy, unclean, energy wasting, stinkin’ slob, and it’s time you faced up to it. And yes, I do mean you. Turn off a few lights, walk around the neighborhood, pick up trash, choose paper over plastic, recycle something! Or you will be doomed to spend eternity listening to Al Gore drone on and on and on and on and on and on. Has anyone checked that man’s pulse lately? It’s quite possible he’s one of the walking dead.

However, Al’s not as boring as Vice President Joe Biden. Biden has actually killed people with boredom. Sure, most of them committed suicide, but Biden drove them to it. I think that’s why the VP likes to throw out outrageous comments when he speaks; he’s trying to keep people awake. He’ll be talking: “We need to look at the gross output of the nation so that we accustomize ourselves to the need to increase output in a productive fashion (Let’s bomb Texas and wear flashy high heels!) to offset non-useful activities...”

Of course, I’m Baptist, and we’re used to sitting still and not moving for long periods of time. My pastor likes to ask for “amens” when he’s preaching, and it’s not so much that he needs encouragement as he wants to make sure we’re still breathing.

Anyway, the point of Earth Day is that we – and by “we,” I mean you – are using too many valuable resources that should be preserved so that they can be used by me. No, no, no, just kidding. We’re preserving those resources so that they can be used by our children and their children’s children, even though we know they aren’t going to come see us in the nursing home. Rotten kids with their video games and Twitter. Why don’t I Twitter my cane upside your head? What do you think of that, you punk!

I seem to have wandered off my point. I wonder where I am. Maybe we should call the nurse. No, wait, here I am. My point is that today is Earth Day, and we should all work to preserve the environment so that our children and their children and even their children won’t blame us for turning this green earth into a dry cinder that looks like Sarah Palin’s been in charge.

Here are a few quick tips:

1. Choose paper over plastic, except for breast implants. Most plastic bags are made of polyethylene and can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. I refuse to use anything that will outlast me, which is why I date older women. And they have more money.

2. Breathe shallowly so you won’t put out so much CO2. In fact, give up exercise completely as that makes you breathe hard. (I’m going to see if my diabetes doctor buys this. I’ll get back to you.) Conversely, you could plant a tree. Outside is best.

3. Replace one light bulb with a compact fluorescent. CFs use 60% less energy and save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide per year per bulb. Or you could sit in the dark, thus conserving even more energy that I can use for my 52 inch plasma screen.

4. Turn your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and sweat a bit. Or, if you’re a woman, glow a bit. I was told once – by a woman – that men sweat, women glow. At my fitness center, some women glow so much you can smell them from 40 paces away.

5. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Reduce waste, reuse waste, recycle waste. Waste not, want not. Only you can prevent forest fires. Lottery tickets are not investments. Don’t spit straight up.

6. Walk, walk, walk. Don’t drive that car. Walk everywhere! Or bicycle. I’ll wave as I drive by. No, seriously, I will wave.

7. Don’t buy bottled water. Or refill the bottle and use it more than once. Plastic bottles make up 3.6 billion pounds – yes, I said billion – each year in our landfills. I don’t know who’s counting them, but I wouldn’t want that job.

And in conclusion on glorious Earth Day, we need to recycle more and look at the gross output of the nation so that we accustomize ourselves to the need to increase output in a productive environmentally friendly fashion (Let’s moon Ohio while dressed as a Klingon!) to offset non-useful activities...”

(Excerpted from Floozy and Other Stories. Copyright 2013 by Stephen B. Bagley. All rights reserved. No copying without the permission of the author and publisher. Thank you for reading.) 

 (This post is part of the 2013 Blogging From A to Z April Challenge. Learn more about the Challenge HERE.)