Another Earth Day has come and gone. Remember the throngs of humanity, gathering in common purpose? The hopeful determination? The global community, joining hand in hand, casting aside all petty differences to collectively embrace a loving agenda to improve all of mankind?

Yeah, me neither.

As I recall, I spent most of Earth Day trying to avoid being killed by a light bulb.

For average Americans to ever wrench themselves away from text-messaging and focus on environmental things, environmental things must hire much better marketing consultants. I finally decided to try one of the new, non-threatening light bulbs – you know, one of those curly things that looks like soft-serve ice cream, costs more than a tanning bed, and is guaranteed to save me up to 12 cents between now and the formation of any new continents.

Because I am exactly the type of very dull person who would do such a thing, I read the light bulb packaging. Good grief! I’ve seen bottles of rodent poison with less warnings. Should you ever drop the light bulb, you have to immediately evacuate the premises and call in a Haz-Mat team.

Basically, you simply can’t safely have one of these bulbs in your house. And you can’t not have one, either, because you can’t just toss them in the trash. When one of these wonder-bulbs finally does go dim (Star Date 2820), you have to wrap the toxic thing in a bag, then wrap that bag in a bag, tape the bag shut, contact an excommunicated priest, yell some Latin at it, and bury it at midnight in the shadow of a National Endowment for the Arts building.

And then there’s this eco-push for ATVs (Absurdly Tiny Vehicles). These are the new super-sub-compact, alternatively-fueled, eco-friendly cars that are made in America from reinforced aluminum foil, weigh approximately as much as a case of lite beer, and will jet along at an impressive 28 mph for nearly 10 whole minutes (actual frustration levels may vary). After 10 minutes, of course, the owner must plug the car into one of the handy roadside electrical outlets that don’t exist. Alternatively, the owner may boil down some more corn, or replace the gerbil. As a last resort, the stranded driver can simply crumple the car into a little wad, shove it in a shirt pocket, and walk.

Congress is fully behind these new vehicle designs … and that alone should give you a really powerful clue about the whole plan. Congress is confident that everybody is eager to buy one of these overnight bags with wheels, as soon as Detroit manages to design one that is actually larger than the driver.

In a recent news piece, we were treated to a film clip of a simulated crash between one of these micro-vehicles, tentatively named the Pontiac ‘Stunted Growth,’ and an actual car from Earth. It was awful. It was like some special-effects scene that got cut from a ‘Die Hard’ sequel for being overly violent. The not-quite-car never stood a chance, and the poor test dummy ended up looking like something that had been attacked by the flying monkeys from Oz. After the dust settled, I’m pretty sure I saw the test dummy text-messaging his test lawyer.

To commemorate the latest Earth Day, President TeleBarack ObamaPrompter flew, in a hope-filled way, more than halfway across the country, in order to stand with hope in front of a bunch of hope-filled wind turbines and read a TelePrompter script. After thanking himself, and then introducing himself, and then thanking himself for inviting himself, the President actually said, out loud, “next page.” Then the President told us, in a hope-filled way, to do our part by not wasting fuel, and that, by the way, he had just sold The Bronx and three Republican-leaning states to Fiat. Had he simply misread his speech from a TelePrompter in Washington, he himself would have not wasted some 10,000 gallons of fuel -– nearly as much as Nancy Pelosi’s entire monthly budget.

And in my home town, on Earth Day, the recycling center was closed.