Beware: The Earth has us surrounded
Author's note: This is my annual column meant to raise reader awareness of the misguided, and potentially pagan, celebration of Earth Day. All you Baal worshippers out there who recycle and eat free-range food, just remember - this is America, pal. You're outnumbered.
The earth is not our friend.
Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, blizzards, summer, gravity. They all kill.
And where can we find these things?
In nature.
From floods to forest fires, nature is man's greatest enemy. Nature takes lives, destroys our homes and makes us all itchy.
Frankly, the world would be better off without it.
Let me tell you a story.
A hiker - let's call him Mike - was walking through a state forest.
It was a beautiful forest, full of greenery, songbirds, no trespassing signs and all sorts of yummy-tasting beasties.
Now, Mike was an environmentalist, with crazy, European ideas, like putting bricks in toilet tanks, bicycling to work and taking canvas bags to the grocery store.
Mike is what we call a fruitcake.
But even fruitcakes deserve a walk outside. It keeps them away from the general population.
Mike walked through this forest, carrying a canvas bag with him in case he stumbled across something evil, like polypropylene bent upon world domination.
He picked up a few beer cans, buried his poo and fished a mattress out of a stream.
What am I going to do with that old mattress? He wondered. It was too heavy to carry back to his Toyota Prius.
Mike left it on the bank of the stream. He figured maybe he could drag the mattress to his hybrid car if it dried out.
Who, he wondered, could be so thoughtless as to dump a mattress in such a peaceful spot?
Mike stood for a second and stared at the beauty around him.
"Nothing bad could happen here," he said.
He started walking again, his canvas bag beginning to fill with the waste of capitalistic consumerism.
Mike smiled. He was doing something, not just good, but right.
Then he saw a bear, and smiled again.
Here is a brother of nature, Mike thought. How glorious it is that I happened upon my brother on this Earth Day.
Mike had never seen a bear outside a zoo before, but he'd seen plenty of Disney movies. Everything would be fine.
"Hello, friend bear," he said, holding his hands in front of him in the universal symbol of friendship and acceptance some hippy teacher taught him once.
The bear charged.
Mike screamed like a 10-year-old girl and ran through the forest. He reached the bank of the stream, tripped over a log in the water, and avoided a nasty scrape on some rocks by falling softly on the mattress - where the bear ate him.
Mike died, not because he was stupid, but because nature killed him.
Don't let Mike the Fruitcake be forgotten - and don't let something this tragic happen to another clueless hiker. Go into the woods and forests of this great land. Take your chainsaws and torches and help make this world a safer place.
Remember, only you can prevent forests.
