The Coonridge Digest: Want a surprise? Count your sockets!

Greetings from the Ridge.

One good thing I can say for Herb… he’s not a profane man. Only the direst circumstances will cause a cuss word to cross his lips and then he makes a feeble attempt to snatch it back.

But the one thing that still jerks an unchecked profanity from his mouth is a blown light bulb. We can both remember a time when changing the light bulb was a matter so minor that we did it without thinking, but as we’ve grown older and our sense of balance has gone the way of the butter churn, a small, blown bulb can become a major matter.

Herb recently went three years without cussing. This week he’s already sworn three times and it’s Wednesday. The reason? I changed the light bulbs.

For me it was a no-brainer. The new ice cream cone shaped compact flourescent bulbs save me money. They use about 75% less energy, and they last 8 to 10 times longer. If you put one in on your 54th birthday, chances are pretty good that it’ll light your way to the birthday cake on your 64th. Even at three bucks a bulb, you save money and you don’t have to make as many tippy trips up a ladder with Herb holding onto the bottom rung saying, "Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ve got you." (This is the same man who ran over the curb at the drug store last week.)

I held off for years after the things were invented because of the memory of our old bathroom. We had those flourescent tubes that you’d click then go fix coffee while you waited for them to come on. Sure, they lasted forever but after about five years they’d start a hum that made you wonder if your pacemaker was dying. Who among us hasn’t been stuck in a decaying motel room feeling to find the bed by the faint glow of a round flourescent tube?

But the new bulbs… honey, they’re sweet. The glow is comparable to the old incandescent bulb, they use only a fraction of the electricity, and you simply change them two or three times in your lifetime then you die.

Herb’s cussing? Well, there’s still a split-second delay for them to warm up and shine. I mean, the wait is hardly noticeable unless like Herb you have a lifetime’s memory of climbing ladders. When you flick the switch you assume the light’s not coming on but just a breath’s hesitation and you’ve got light. That’s when the profanity leaks out and so far he’s been unable to remember that I’ve changed every bulb in the house.

That’s right. Every single bulb. Throw away perfectly good light bulbs? Yep. Life’s too short to send a single unnecessary dime to the robber barons running my power company. I know what their CEO’s make and if I can shorten their vacation to Tahiti by even a minute then I’m of a mind to do it.

And the math is persuasive. The typical American household has between 50 and 100 sockets. Want a surprise? Count your sockets some day. If every household bought just one ice cream bulb and screwed it in the place of a 60-watt bulb, we could save enough energy to power a city of 1.5 million people. That’s all of Delaware and Rhode Island.

Translate that into the greenhouse gas produced by electricity-making power plants and it’s the equivalent of taking 1.3 million cars off the road.

The biggest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S. are power plants and half of our electricity comes from these watt-makers. The one-per-household savings would shut down two entire plants.

And independent research resources say it takes only five months to pay for the purchase of your first bulb. Five stinking months! A no brainer. All that for a product that only takes you up the ladder once every ten years and you’re seldom left balancing on a ladder with a shaky husband in charge of your well-being.

And you know what? They’re sort of cute. The bulbs, not the husbands.

The curly little rascals are easier to hang onto than their oval predecessors and although they tend to stick out a bit further than the older model, so do I.

As I said, the only downside to the bulb is the first word out of Herb’s mouth before his brain reminds him to wait a half second. Seems a small price to pay. If you’re married to a less profanity-prone spouse then you’ll get off even cheaper.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.