25 April—Peccavi. Fateor. Parce mihi, Terrae, quia non potui tua celebrare diem. I have sinned. I confess. Forgive me, Earth, for I have failed to celebrate your day. (It sounds so much better in Latin, doesn’t it? It’s God’s language, after all.)

Your day was three days ago, beloved planet. On that day, I had the temerity to turn down an invitation and the sterling opportunity to honor you by cleaning up all manner of crap that thoughtless people had left all over the place. And to smile for the other honorees and the cameras while doing it.

I pay a pretty damn high mill rate to Litchfield for handsomely paid unionized town employees to clean up after inconsiderate, lazy slobs. Of whom I am not one, I must assure you. So you’ll understand, dear Earth, my reluctance to do their jobs. Unions don’t approve of that sort of thing at the best of times, anyway.

On the other hand, Litchfield doesn’t provide municipal trash collection or even a town dumpster/transfer facility for residents and taxpayers to use if they don’t pay for private trash collection. Yet all taxpayers are forced to pay the tipping fees for all the people who choose to use private collectors. In other words, we unserviced few, we band of brothers pay for a service we’re not getting.

But 22 April was your special day, O oblate spheroid mother, and . . .

Wait a minute. Wait a bloody minute. Had it not been for Julian Koenig—the genius K of PKL, the Papert Koenig Lois advertising agency—having a birthday on 22 April, Earth Day wouldn’t even have been called that. So there. Earth Day rhymes with birthday, you see.

And Koenig’s other suggestions were Environment Day, Ecology Day, or just plain E Day. So it’s really just an accident that we’re supposed to pick up OPT—other people’s trash—for you, terrestrial mother, rather than for the environment, ecology, or portmanteau E. Boy, are you lucky.

But don’t worry, old girl, I have no intention of deserting you. You can rest assured that there’s no planet I’d rather live on. In fact, there’s not even any other planet I’d care to visit. So I guess we’re stuck with each other. And I hate to get too personal, but one of these days I may even be inside you . . .