"These happy golden years are passing by, these happy golden years." Laura Ingalls Wilder

Friday, July 31, 2009

That's It ... They're all outta here.


... any remaining CFL's (compact squiggly .. government approved .. I mean forced upon ... poisonous light bulbs) ... and things that go bump in the night. See the below post before reading this one. All is calm. It's 3 AM and not a mouse is stirring .. not even my dawg or Nathan .. both are sound asleep. So why, oh why do my ears hear a CrAsHing sound ... splat ... breaking glass ... Could it be a burglar? No. Oh ... it's a table lamp that has toppled over landing on my hardwood floor. A lamp that got knocked over by a nice summer breeze .. by leaving my windows open to save energy .. not having to use my air conditioner .. on a warm summer night. Crash .. a CFL shattering all over my wooden floor. Only yesterday I posted about needing a hazmat suit when cleaning up a broken CFL. You also need to find a drop off location to keep these bulbs out of the landfill .. remember, they contain a small amount of mercury. Toxic mercury! One is actually supposed to open all of the windows and VACATE the premises .. remembering to remove small children and pets as well. It's 3 Am and my wild child, Nathan, that gets mom and dad up at all hours of the night needing assistance ... a special needs child .. And the dawg ... Miss Holly ... as pretty as she is now from just having gone to the groomers this week ... she's also a ''special needs dawg" needing drugs to survive a thunder and lightening storm and/or things that go bump in the night from living out in the woods. It's 3 Am and all is not well according to the government. I have decided NOT to vacate the premises. Said special needs creatures are sound asleep .. where I should be .. only I'm now worried about mercury vapors in my home. Send help!

Later today I'm off to dispose/return all of the other crappy cfl bulbs in my home/storage room.
I shall make a run on purchasing every incandescent light bulb I can find at the big box home repair store. Enough bulbs to last my entire lifetime. Enough to outlast the stupid push of the government's plan to force people to use toxic, harmful to the environment, ugly light emitting, did I mention ugly looking light bulbs. I may be gone for a while.

10 comments:

Kathryn said...

I'm with you on the CFLs (tho my hubby jumped on board, at first). I've been very much against them since i learned they contain mercury.

We are slowly changing our lights to LEDs over time. They are expensive, but last like 50x as long & use less energy (my hubby's big incentive).

I'd be happy to buy up all the incandescents i can find, but he doesn't want the energy use - um energy bill. Funny the same man can run a computer for hours & lots of other electrical burning equipment, but fusses about incandescent lights!

I am all for being kind to our planet, reuse, recycle, & use our brains. I think we are treating the planet God gave us very shabbily. BUT i think CFLs are a clever marketing scam not the best way to be kind to the earth.

Good luck with this!

Trish said...

Preach it Sister! I am right behind you...Tomer has the hideous looking
bulbs in several of our lamps...I HATE them. Then, after reading about the mercury...well, if I weren't a Christian I probably would've said some not nice words...*#%@!*. I told Tomer when these go I am buying NO more!!! Sorry about your hardwood floor though.
I wouldn't have vacated either...let sweet Natan and that ol' dog slumber!!!
~hugs~

Jada's Gigi said...

You are too funny! Was it still very hot whenyou were writing this at 3am? You sound hot and bothered. lol

Crown of Beauty said...

I love your sense of humor while getting an important point across. In fact until this post, I never eve knew CFLs were poisonous! Oh dear, my house is full of 'em. Made the switch from incandescents to these, yes ugly looking, energy saver ones! Now, must I switch back? I suppose I must! Thanks to your informative post.

Keep the boy, and the dawg, out of harm's way, Mrs. Mac...but let them have their precious sleep above all!

LynnS said...

You go, girl! We only have one and won't get any more because of both poor illumination and, of course, the mercury. Learned about that 6 months ago or so.

Moral of the story: DO NOT TRUST THE GOVERNMENT.

Now, tell me whatcha think about this H1N1/Swine Flu vaccination that the Feds have lined up the military and FEMA for. Doesn't that sound ominous??? I worked for FEMA. NO part of the FEMA mission involved implementation with vaccinations for disaster assistance.

Jim said...

You should have called 9-1-1 or Al Gore or the White House! That was real peril!
I have one pack of those things but they have never been plugged in. It turns out the place I wanted to use them they wouldn't fit.
When the good old fashioned American ones become illegal we will make runs to Mexico like we do for other things we can't buy anymore.
The good stuff probably is already banned in Canada??
..

Mrs. Mac said...

Mr. Jim ... you shall be my supplier of all illegal things from Mexico .. never thought about that! ;)

Saija said...

*chuckling* ... was that God's gentle breeze blowing through?

it always amazes me how us humans (or our governments) get so caught up with (or side tracked) by these silly things ...

we have the new light bulbs all over our house (they were there when we bought the condo) ... tho' i WANT my 150 watt old fashioned bulbs for my reading light! i can't see with the other things to read well enough! sheesh!

Maggie Ann said...

We never tried any CFL's and I just got educated by your unpleasant experience. I wouldn't have vacated the house either under the circumstances.~~~ Have you done any drop spinning? I know its tricky at first. I just read a bit about 'drafting' horizontally...I'd like to try that.

Felisol said...

Dear Mrs. Mac,
In my ignorance I thought these Americans sure are crazy when I first read about your mercury light bulbs.
Once again, I should not have been so arrogant. It turns out that from next week the mercury bulbs will be the only ones left on the arena in any Norwegian store.
Oh, I so well remember when the mercury thermometers were abandoned. They broke easily and were highly toxic.
Only thing was, they were far more reliable than the new battery driven ones.
I have kept one and kept it well.
Today we'll go out searching for old light bulbs.
It's so sad, really, how this necessary environment "improvements" turn out to be worse than their predecessors.
Like in the parable in the Bible.
From Felisol