Daily Archives: August 10, 2012

We had thunderstorms last night so I had to share my bed with Mlle. Renee. I love Mlle. Renee, but she’s a bed hog dog. Well, it’s just that she needs a pillow for her head when she sleeps … and that pillow usually is my legs. So as she keeps getting closer, I keep moving over. Eventually I end up on the brink of falling out of bed. Thankfully, last night the storms ended early and she left my bed around 4: 30 to move to the comfort of her own bed. So I was able to catch a couple of hours of decent sleep  before the phone started ringing about eight.

It was a solicitation from something called Senior Services and they wanted to tell me how they could help me care for the senior citizen living in my. “Hell’s bells and handle-bars,” I yelled into the phone!  ”I’m the senior citizen living in this home and you just woke me from a pleasant morning sleep-in after a very stormy night.” Then I hung up and jumped back in bed to see if I could catch a couple of winks before the alarm sounds. Wishful thinking!

So I got up and went into the kitchen and discovered one of the lights in the overhead fixture had burned out. This wouldn’t have been a problem, but another bulb in the same fixture had burned out a couple of weeks ago. With one remaining glowing light, it wasn’t very bright in the kitchen and I couldn’t really solve my morning puzzles. So I trekked down to the basement to fetch the ladder so I could put my nonexistent circus skills to work and replace the bulbs. But they’re not really bulbs anymore, they’re now called CFLs because they’re curly thingies instead of bulbs.

Sure, they last longer that the old incandescent bulbs and they don’t use as much electricity, BUT … you can’t throw them in the trash can because they contain mercury. The recycling pickup doesn’t want the either. So I had to go online to find out who would take the twisted little buggers. The first to places would take them, but they had a per bulb recycling fee. So how am I saving money on lights that I have to pay to throw them away.

A bit more research and I discovered the Home Depot (the place where I bought them in the first place) and Ace Hardware would take them. So in the morning before I get my haircut, I’ll drop into Home Depot dump my two CFL. BTW, I’m not sure, but I think CFL stands for Curly Fluoresent Lamps.