I wore green today.

By Eric Brinling

I wore green today. Well, technically it was yesterday, but literally right now it is 12:00 am so really it feels like today. 

I wore green. I’ve never worn green before. I always thought it was an inferior color. Typically I dress in shades of grey and blue, for the express purpose of blending into the sky whether the day is clear or cloudy (I am rather tall in comparison to most people). Sometimes I dress in blacks or reds, but only when I feel like blending into the night or a pool filled with blood (or fruit punch). My favorite color is orange, but I rarely wear it, lest I be mistaken for a Buddhist monk. Purple is scary.

But today I wore green. It started when I looked in my drawer, and saw a green shirt. I thought to myself, “Do I own a green shirt?” and I could only assume the answer was “Yes, Eric, you do own a green shirt,” because there was, in fact, a green shirt in my drawer. 

Then I looked in my other drawer, the one with the pants. There were green pants in there. They were like jeans, but green. I called them greans. The presence of the greans was interesting, because I don’t own greans. Or I didn’t, but now I do. 

I hadn’t even touched the green shirt or the greans, but suddenly they were on me. I hadn’t been wearing socks a moment ago, but now I was, and they, too, were green. I grew frightened, and with shaking hands I unzipped the zipper on the greans to find that my boxers, too, were green. 

I thought about changing, but I was too busy not wanting to do that, so I decided instead to just put up with my new wardrobe. I put on my (newly green) shoes and exited the building. I stayed on the sidewalk, for fear that the small patches of grass might think of me as one of their own and swallow me whole before I got the chance to explore other career options as a green-clad man. 

As I walked down the street, people began to stare. I thought perhaps I had something in my teeth, but then I remembered that I was dressed entirely in green, and that might draw some attention. I passed some trees, and thought about becoming a leaf, but I thought better of it. Leaves have a frighteningly short lifespan.

Something green on the ground caught my eye. It was a dollar! It was then that I resolved to become paper currency, which in America is conveniently green. I walked up to the nearest old woman and snuck into her purse. Merely three days later she shoved me into the slot of a vending machine, and in exchange she received a bag of split pea soup.