A Green-phobic's Guide to Going Green

I never gave much thought to the color green, but now it seems to have oozed into everything like some weird toe fungus. And I don't think it's ever going away. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a little smothered in the color green, lately. It's seeped into my house, my office, my car, my shopping cart and even into the people I know and love. Even when I'm not thinking about green, it's apparently festering away in my subconscious. How else can I explain recently deciding to "go green" by painting my bedroom the most bizarre shade of green I could find? Not only is the green bedroom right next to the red bathroom, it happens to be a hue of organic that clashes with every other color in the universe, including wood floors and white ceilings. The color gurus had assured me that green was a soothing color - perfect for a bedroom because it makes you sleepy. Only what happened was I stayed awake nights trying to figure out what color I could use to cover this hideous shade, getting into epic, involved arguments with myself about why each and every other color and shade would be wrong and trying to figure out when I was going to have a week with nothing to do, and nowhere to go, so I could repaint it. This, generally, made it next to impossible to fall asleep.

I never used to think I was susceptible to crowd mentality. When I thought about the color green at all, baby poop, Brussels sprouts and boogers were what always sprang to mind. Green is that peculiar shade of slimy that grows in my refrigerator. It has to be cleaned out of the pool and mowed every weekend. It stains my clothes and tarnishes my copper. When I turn green, I'm sick; when I eat green apples, ditto. The car I totaled was green (and uninsured). When my husband painted his Harley green, he never rode it again. Then he sold it while I was out shopping one Saturday (not a happy marriage moment). I clearly remember wearing a green dress when I fell down and broke my wrist. Of course, I was also wearing green, high heeled shoes in the middle of January so maybe it wasn't entirely the fault of the color. But green is the traditional color of simplemindedness, sourness, immaturity, gullibility, water you can't drink, shower with or swim in. Green olives make me gag, green pickles make me pucker and green boogers dripping down the face of even the cutest baby make me shudder in disgust. It might even, if my personal history is any indication, be the color of stupid, and/or clumsy.

I know a color can't be spiteful, but green sure seems bent on returning my feelings of distaste. Every time I tried to "go green," something always seemed to go wrong. Install solar panels? Six months of rain. Buy 26 overpriced "Energy Star" rated windows? Defective. Invest in a pellet stove? Record low gas prices. Cash for Clunkers? Out of money. Paperless billing statements? Computer crash. Plant a garden? Feed the wildlife. (You'd think they'd leave me something.) Even the simplest of things seems to cause a problem. Walk to work? Offend your scent-sensitive co-workers. Finally recycle all the old magazines? Upset the puritanical neighbors. Leave the lights off? Stub your toe, bruise your shin, kill the cat.

But don't worry. I admit I am a little blue, but I'm not yet going yellow or seeing red when it comes to going green. I'll keep trying to help save the planet by being as environmentally friendly as green will allow, but I think I'm going to hedge my bets and go brown too. I finally figured out a way to increase my happiness quotient in direct proportion to decreasing my carbon footprint. I plan to stop cooking and eat a lot more chocolate.