NYT columnist Maureen Dowd tweaked the title of an old monster movie for a recent headline: “The creature from the green lagoon.” Could there be a more apt way to describe the shiny beast who polluted the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial in advance of the nation’s 250th birthday?

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit sipped beer and shrugged. “It’s misleading. Trump ain’t black and he ain’t green. He’s orange.”

“Maybe it’s time for him to go green,” I said. “That orange goop he smears on his face is probably toxic.”

We debated the criminal-in-chief’s $14 million pool fiasco. Swamp Rabbit noted that Trump had wanted the pool water to have a blue sheen for the red, white and blue holiday. That’s why his no-bid contractor clowns painted the pool’s surfaces blue. But the water turned green as algae set in, and the paint peeled when they tried to kill the algae, and who knows what color the pool will be when July 4th rolls around.

“Dowd is right,” I said. “Green is Trump’s ‘essence.’ He’s like the algae — ‘slimy, stinky and unrelenting.'”

I mentioned the TV show “Orange Is the New Black,” about a woman who has to wear an orange jumpsuit after she gets sent to prison.

He looked confused. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“In the fashion world, black is never out of style,” I said. “But every year a new color is ‘in’ and becomes as fashionable as black for a while. In Trump World, it’s orange that’s never out of style, but green is ‘in’ this year thanks to the pool. Green is the new orange, know what I’m saying? “

Swamp Rabbit raised his can of beer. “No, I don’t know what you’re saying, but here’s hoping I live to see Trump wearing an orange jumpsuit.”