Lightbulbs

I know, a post about lightbulbs, how lame am I? But it's funny, I promise. Or at least it made me chuckle. And now you're stuck reading it because you're wondering if it's really funny or if I've lost it, but you'll keep reading just to see. Won't you?

Tim has a knack for getting used, yet useful things, to save us money. Usually I think it's great because I'm such a, well, spendthrift. And how he gets some of these things is beyond me. Like lightbulbs. Where does a person obtain old (yet new) or used light bulbs? I have no idea.

Tim is one to use things up so if we've got a bulb that will fit, he'll use it. Our house is namely all wall sconces that require the chandelier type bulbs but the kitchen uses regular bulbs so that's where all of the random bulbs go.

I have a thing for having lots of light in the kitchen, it's just how I am. So I like the bulbs in the kitchen to have some watts on them, but the last few that Tim has put in were very dim. Like maybe 25 watts and I'd like them to be 75 watts. Being the good wife that I am I didn't say that it drove me crazy that we were replacing our bright bulbs with dim ones. I know it saves us money.

Then it got to where it was four dim bulbs so I'd have to turn on a wall sconce beside the stove so I could see to cook. That's when my stellar wife traits came out with the subtle, or not-so-subtle comments about dim bulbs, ruining my eyes, you know, that kind of thing.

Tim told me to just go buy bulbs then. I said I thought he'd get mad since we had some to use, but he said he was tired of me whining about it. Permission granted!

I went to the grocery and bought one of the new-fangled light bulbs-you know the swirly kind. I wasn't sure what kind to get so I just got one 100 watt bulb. I bet at this point you're wishing you'd have skipped today's post!

I took it home and Tim didn't even wait for one of the dim ones to burn out, he just up and replaced it. I took that to mean I'd been complaining about it a lot! He put it in and it didn't seem any brighter than the 25 watt he took out. I was very disappointed since it was so expensive (comparatively).

Then after a minute the kitchen started to get brighter. Tim and I looked at the bulb, at each other and back at the bulb. It really did seem to be brighter than when it started. Were we imagining it? No we weren't-I guess it just needed to warm up or something. If you've been using these bulbs for years and already knew that, pay no attention to me!

The next week at the grocery I bought a three pack of 60 watt bulbs for when the rest of the dim ones burned out. I wanted to be prepared; I didn't want to get stuck with another dim one Tim scrounged from somewhere.

I left them on the table while I was putting groceries away and when Tim came in he swapped them all out and threw the dim ones away-they weren't even burned out! Apparently Tim wanted to hear no lip from me about the bulbs anymore.

Now when I flip on the light it starts out dim and then explodes into white brilliance and I love it! Tim says it makes the kitchen look bad since it's all lit up and you can see everything (it's needs a remodel in a pretty bad way), but I can see what I'm cooking and washing, so I'm happy.

One night after dark I was cleaning up in the kitchen and Tim came in from somewhere else in the house where the lights are dim (or normal, whatever). He's super animated and says, "Why don't we just paint the floor green? And paint some white stripes?" I'm looking at him totally bewildered. He starts to laugh and continues "Then we can add the goal posts, we've already got the field lighting in!"

I just laughed and laughed.

Wasn't that story worth all the boring back story?