Call me a skeptic, but I believe this whole “go green” movement has less to do with helping the environment and more to do with people wanting to avoid being pinched on St. Patrick’s Day.

Who on earth invented this practice of pinching anyone who isn’t wearing the color green on St. Patrick’s Day? Was it the same guy behind all those Leprechaun movies? If so, dude, haven’t you done enough?

Like most ideas that are now mainstream, I believe this started out as a goof. Colin Farrell, Sinead O’Conner, 90’s music group House of Pain, Bono, Roma Downey and Lucky the Leprechaun were all probably drinking at a pub. The evening started with them comparing the works of Oscar Wilde and Dylan Thomas, transitioned to them pondering how The Smurfs reproduced, and then ultimately ended with Colin Farrell sucker punching Roma Downey. And somewhere in the middle the idea of pinching anyone who didn’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day was thrown about.

How in the world the idea caught on is beyond me. It’s the equivalent of throat punching anyone without a date on Valentine’s Day. A fun idea? Sure. Practical? Hardly.

All over the country, people who forgot what day it was and dressed in greenless apparel will be tormented. They’ll essentially be walking around all day with a “pinch me” sign on their backs. Friends, family and even complete strangers will walk up to them and pinch them.

It’s madness, I say. Madness.

All that said, I’m really looking forward to pinching people.

Humor-blogs had to Google “Roma Downey” to know who I was referring to.