light bulbs

My son had the audacity to think he could predict exactly what I would write about in my next column. “you will write about your family,” he said, “as always.”
He caught me in an uncooperative mood. “I will not,” I said. “I will write about something else.” He just grinned knowingly.
I frantically scrambled to find an idea. Glancing around he room, an idea hit me. “I will write about lightbulbs!” I defiantly declared.
I looked at me skeptically.;
Hey, just consider the increase in the number of light bulb changing ceremonies we hold throughout the year since moving into our modern, energy-efficient Arkansas home compared to our previous home, a drafty, antique Indiana carpenter’s nightmare.
The difference can be credited to the hostess gift my ex-brother-in-law brought when he and my sister visited us in the early 1970’s. It was a package of gizmos to stick in the light sockets. The gizmos slowly introduced electrical energy to the lightbulbs when the switch was flicked. Without that initial surge of electricity bursting through the fragile filaments, the bulbs lit a tad bit slower but they lasted years instead of months.
He went around our house adding the lightbulb life extenders to every one of our light sockets. The only place he could not add them was in the kitchen and batheroom where we had fluorescent lights. That was OK; fluorescent lights last much longer than regular bulbs anyway. I did not realize how well the gizmos were doing until we moved into our current home and left the gizmos behind.
Our new house had three dozen light sockets, no counting whatever current arrangement of lamps we are using. We quickly realized we were changing a lot of light bulbs. By the time I remembered to buy another package of lightbulbs, I would use most of them to replace another set of expired bulbs.
Eventually I figured out that the gizmos had made the difference. I intended to buy 36 gizmos, until I saw the price. I decided we could buy a lot of light bulbs for the price of one gizmo. considering the truckload of lightbulbs I have purchased over the past 18 years we have lived in El Dorado, the gizmos might have been cheaper.
I developed the habit of stocking up on lightbulbs when I saw them on sale.
I didn’t realize how much I stocked up, until I was shopping with my son’s girlfriend and I saw four-packs of lightbulbs for a dollar each. I began piling my caret with 40-watt, 60-watt, 75-watt and 100-watt packages of light bulbs.
“That’s a lot of light bulbs,” she observed.
I stopped and looked at my cart filled with lightbulbs and little else. Maybe I did have enough. Reluctantly I pushed my cart along and checked out.
At home, I stacked my new boxes of bulbs on the shelf beside several others and c occluded I had developed a light bulb fetish.
At least it is a useful fetish: as long as the electricity and my creative juices keep flowing, I will never sit in the dark writing a column about my family, or an other subject.