I want to save the planet. I really do. Most of it, anyway. There are some things that shouldn’t be saved, such as four-way stop intersections and also all home shopping television channels. You and I know how to negotiate four-way stop intersections, but we may be the only ones. Most people, in my experience, believe the proper procedure is to bring their car to a complete stop, begin waving at all the other drivers telling them to go (even if they don’t have the right of way), close their eyes and then, without warning, hit the gas. Do you know that 97% of auto insurance companies have at least one office within walking distance of a four-way stop intersection? I might have made that up. As far as the home shopping television channels go, well, everyone knows that the hosts on those channels are evil, bloodsucking zombies, right? Also, they are hypnotists. If you watch one of those channels for more than 47 seconds, you will wake up 3 days later, flat broke, with your credit cards spread across the floor begging for mercy. The bank will have left messages for you and you will be awaiting a huge shipment of exercise equipment, wrinkle cream, door locks and shoes that don’t fit anyone you know.
But that’s not what I came here to tell you. I came here to complain about light bulbs.
Apparently, I can save the planet by changing my light bulbs. That’s good news for me, because I don’t really recycle, my car uses an immense amount of fuel (mostly by idling at four-way stops, waiting for everyone else to go) and our kids use a LOT of electricity. So I bought some of those compact fluorescent bulbs and set about changing all of the bulbs in my house, even if they weren’t burned out yet. I never realized how many bulbs there were in my house until I started trying to change them all at the same time. There are, maybe, hundreds. Compact fluorescent bulbs use much less electricity than normal bulbs and they last for seven years. The problem? They hardly fit anywhere. Every bedroom has a ceiling fan with a light kit. Regular bulbs fit inside the glass globe of the light kit. “Compact” fluorescents bulbs do not. They are about half an inch too long. The bulbs I found are not made to work in recessed lighting either. So how many bulbs did I successfully switch over to the environmentally friendly CF bulbs? Four. How many environmentally friendly CF bulbs did I purchase? A lot more than four.
Well, at least now I have
everything I’ll need to save the planet again seven years from now.
I hope it lasts that long.
Most of it, anyway.