let there be
My dining room – the center of my house, and a place where I pay bills, and wrap gifts, and occasionally even dine – has a single light fixture, a small old chandelier with five candle-shaped bulbs. Two of these bulbs have been out since I moved in. When a third popped off last week the room became rather undeniably dark.When I say “last week” I mean, of course, early November.
Yesterday I finally arrived at the store with a tiny sketch of the needed bulb. An easy enough assignment. But I’ve been diligently switching to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, and so I tried first to find some of those. CFLs use less electricity and last longer. Switching to CFLs is the single easiest thing that everyone can do to get greener.
But if your fixture has a dim feature (which mine does) you need special dimmable CFLs. And some CFLs have terrible light quality, so it’s important to find bulbs with the EnergyStar logo so you don’t get crappy light. Frustratingly the candle-shaped bulbs at this particular store came in either (a) non-dimmable EnergyStar or (b) non-EnergyStar dimmable, and neither was what I wanted.
Furthermore the CFL candle bulbs were $8 each. At $3 for a four-pack of conventional bulbs, spending $40 to light a single fixture felt absurd, even if it would pay for itself within my natural life. Plus the non-candle-shaped CFL bulbs were $4, which felt unfair.
But the conventional bulbs looked all fragile and Made In China, like they were engineered to be thrown away and replaced. They felt wasteful and short-sighted. They felt like the cheap package you were supposed to pick up without further thought, which itself felt like a problem.
So I stood there paralyzed, staring at an assortment of equally inappropriate bulbs and unsure of what to do. I think I stood there a long time.
And I tell you this now not to illustrate the thoughtfulness I put into my purchasing or to educate you about new lightbulb technology, but to remind you that we are all, every one of us, Occasionally Crazy. I stood there with my hands full of lightbulbs as if this decision might Change the Course of History.
I have friends with filthy kitchens because they are driven to clean their kitchens so thoroughly that any cleaning short of a complete cleaning is futile. I have friends who write down their odometer reading in a tiny little glovebox notebook each time they get gasoline. I have friends who mow their lawns in specific patterns, so that the grass doesn’t get smushed down unevenly.
And once in a while, when I witness these ordinary insanities, I find myself rolling my eyes. Wouldn’t a slightly clean kitchen be better than this abomination? I silently wonder. Or, Have you ever even looked in that notebook for any purposeful reason? Or Patterns in your lawn? Seriously?
And then the universe sends me to the electrical aisle at ten thirty on a Thursday night and fills my hands with lightbulbs, that I might become fraught with indecision. That I might face my own Inner Crazy, and remember why it is there.
It is there, for me, right now, because apparently I am craving a feeling of control. Much of my life feels out of my hands but This, this I can do – I can choose the proper lightbulb. I can weigh my options carefully and make the choice that is Right, and it will go just as I plan.
Sometimes it’s there for other reasons. Sometimes we clean or record or mow to feel competent or wise or of consequence. Crazy can be all kinds of useful. And what am I hoping for, anyway, when I wish it away? A world where we all make optimized reasonable decisions based on efficiency? A world where we only think about important things, all the time? Which things are those?
I bought the $3 four-pack. I didn’t feel great about it but I came home and got up on a chair and put them in. I figured out that two of the three dark bulbs weren’t actually burned out at all – just improperly adjusted. I’m sure there’s a lesson there too but mostly it just started me laughing, long and loud in my empty, bright room.
posted by tortaluga @ 5:06 PM
9 Comments:
I was expecting you to have immediately decided to get rid of the fixture and knock out the ceiling and put in a skylight then and there. That's where I thought the story was going.
I love the title to the current entry and humbly suggest a next entry, entitled "Let it"
a skylight! that's brilliant. if i'd thought of it then i might have done it.
anon #2, may i refer you to a post from january '07:
http://nonagonal.blogspot.com/2007/01/let-it.html
great minds think alike :)
Then there's the whole mercury issue and you have to take them to Home Depot to recycle them. Also, they're toxic to pregnant women and small children if they break.
I came home earlier today only to find my carbon monoxide detector going off. That was fun to deal with. Had to have someone come and check everything out just to be sure.
You have your CO detectors?
hi kira! yes, cfls do have mercury - which is toxic to everyone. but it's about 1/100th the amount of mercury in the old-style thermometers that most of us grew up with, and - like that mercury - it's not a danger in your home unless you break it open and, say, hold it for a while, or eat it. (not wise to let a child play with a broken conventional lightbulb, either.)
that said, it would be better if all that mercury wasn't going into landfills from folks that don't know to drop them off properly. but as soon as you look at lifecycle impact, it gets murky... because the extra power needed for conventional bulbs (a lot) comes from various kinds of power plants, most of which release all sorts of toxins into the environment, too.
moving on to carbon monoxide! i don't have a CO detector. mostly because the only source of CO in my home is my woodstove (no furnace, fireplace, attached garage, or gas of any kind), and it's a new, EPA certified, properly installed stove with a very tight fitting door. but also because my house is so old and leaky that the wind practically blows through it. instant protection.
moral of this comment string: don't get me started talking about toxic stuff.
"have i told you lately?
..that i read you?" in the rod stewart kind-of-way and it's always a highlight of my day.
oh anon #4, you fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness. ease my troubles - that's what you do.
Happy Merry!
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