Who’s Bright Idea?

I guess we all saw this coming.

Or should have.

The confusion, the chaos...the heavy handed, tyrannical government intrusion into everything we hold near and dear.

The upheaval of the status quo.

Basic rights, ethics, morality and just plain common sense and decency thrown to the wolves.

Is this the kind of thing we want to see our government involved in?

Really?

Messing with our light bulbs?

What...?

Why the big gasp?

Am I missing something?

Is there something more important than the light bulb outrage going on?

If there is, no one told me about it and I’ve been way too busy trying to get to the bottom of this lighting issue to watch the news or read a newspaper....

At first I thought I had a vision problem.

Or maybe a brain problem...I mean, other than the obvious one.

Why was my kitchen so dim?

I had just changed the dead bulb in the overhead light a few days before.

Now, all three were working fine...just not so bright....

Weird....

Maybe I’d picked up the wrong bulb or it was mislabeled?

So I climbed back up on the kitchen stool, unscrewed the cover...again...and checked all the bulbs...again.

Nope...same old 60 watt bulbs I’ve been using for years.

But then I checked the packaging and lo and behold...high and be dropped... it appears I’m not using same old 60 watt bulbs I’ve been using for years, after all.

Now I’m using a 60 watt “replacement” bulb that’s actually only 43 watts but supposed to put out as much light as my old 60 watter.

But it doesn’t...not even close.

I’m not going to get all technical here and discuss lumens vs. watts, because that never ends well, especially at the holiday dinner table.

Let’s just say the lumens you get from the new 60 watt “replacement” bulb is not the same as the lumens you used to get from your old 60 watter.

And on and on it goes, right up the wattage charts.

And we all know charts don’t lie.

They withhold, at times, when it’s convenient...but hey, who doesn’t?

Apparently this is not a new thing.

In fact, it all started back in 2007 when the government decided they couldn’t fix much of what needed fixing, so they said...“Hey...let’s fix the light bulbs!”

But then, after a while, they changed their minds, said, “Light bulbs are boring!” and moved on to redesigning the Oreo cookie or something.

In the interest of historical accuracy, I have to admit I’m paraphrasing and making a lot of stuff up, but I’m thinking it went something like that.

Unfortunately, by then, all the light bulb companies had already started changing their manufacturing process to comply with the new standards that were supposed to be rolled out over a period of time and said something in Italian, that my grandma used to say to me, which I was told never to repeat in public, but I think means...“Bad boy”.

I guess I should have been on top of this a lot sooner, but I was too involved watching “American Idol” to notice.

So now we’re stuck with all these hi-tech, fancy schmancy new light bulbs to choose from, some of which resemble items found in a Proctologist’s office.  

Who can decide which is which?

And should I really have voted for Rueben over Clay...or was it the other way around?

Like I said, I’m not going to go into a lot of technical detail about this, because I’m sure I’ll just screw it up...mostly because I don’t know what I’m talking about.

But if you’re an old fashioned guy or gal like me and like your light bulbs round and normal looking, then the lumens, or brightness from the old reliable 60 watter was also a nice round 800. The “replacement” is 565.

Not really quite the same.

Even bumping up to a 75 watt replacement leaves you a few lumens short of a picnic.

So now...can you feel the outrage!

So I’m thinking of organizing and staging a protest rally in my back yard.

I can hear it now.

“Ban the Bulbs...more lumens for the people...1-2-3...we don’t want your LEDs!”

Well, maybe my neighbor’s backyard since I don’t want all those people ruining my lawn.

I mean if people even do that kind of thing anymore.

Probably not.

It would take a lot to get people stirred up these days.

Even more than light bulbs.

Something really outrageous.

Like canceling American Idol....

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