The War On Lightbulbs

I was very pleased last night to turn on the lightbulb in my bedroom, only to be greeted by a big flash, and loud pop, and darkness there. Yes, very pleased.

Why? Well I'm glad you asked. For some time now, as part of my ruthless and ceaseless tidying-up project, I have been operating in this room by the light of the main hanging-down-from-the-ceiling lightbulb, rather than the softer tones of my usual desk lamp. In itself, no great hardship. But inside my desk lamp is a lovely energy-saving light bulb, which uses less electricity than a normal light bulb. I turn it on and am comforted by thoughts of my electricity meter spinning slightly less slowly, the environment being conserved, and dolphins leaping from the waves yearning to breathe free, enjoying the natural benefits of my considerate lighting decisions.

However, the main hanging-down-from-the-ceiling lightbulb offers no such benefits. It is not energy saving at all. It is energy wasting. I'm fairly sure it did not say that on the box - few people would buy light bulbs if labelled in such a fashion - but the evidence is too great to ignore. It was an ordinary Woolworths lightbulb, lacking in all kinds of environmental protection and energy conservation. Each time I turned it on, vast sections of the rain forest would burst into flames, causing innocent monkeys and toucans and dolphins to fall from their trees into the inferno below, such was the environmental catastrophe of my thoughtless lighting decision. I am quite sure.

Each time I killed the planet in this way, it did occur to me that perhaps it would be better if I just replaced this ordinary but otherwise perfectly good lightbulb with an energy saving model. But is it allowed to replace lightbulbs before they are used? Part of me just couldn't get over what a waste it would be. The other part of me suggested that maybe using the lightbulb to its point of extinction would be even more of a waste - a waste of electricity. And therefore, worse still, a waste of money.

Unable to reconcile this dilemma, I took no action, and just hoped that the lightbulb would eventually expire by itself some time soon. And last night, no doubt as a result of all the hideously bad karma being directed at it, the lightbulb finally solved my problem and went pop.

It has now been replaced by a lovely new low-energy lightbulb, which uses 25% of the electricity and puts out 50% more light, which frankly is a little annoying as it makes me feel like I'm in a doctor's surgery or some other brightly-lit white room. But I didn't have any less lightful low energy lightbulbs, so this will have to do for the moment. In fact a trip to the store cupboard revealed to my horror that I still have many boxes of high energy lightbulbs, including another 40 watt Woolworths which would have lit this room to its previous less dazzling degree.

However, safe in the knowledge that if I started using another old style lightbulb, I would have to finish it, and that such a course of action would probably take much too long, I decided instead to keep on keeping on with my more environmentally friendly illumination. Perhaps I can sell the other lightbulbs on eBay.