They are crushing my soul.
It has been almost two months to the day since I wrote my last blog entry which was all about my light bulb trials and tribulations. (Recap: my kitchen light burned out in January. I’ve been cooking in the dark ever since.) Well, dear readers (all three of you) my light bulb situation is still dire, dare I say critical?
*Sigh*
This week two of my favorite people in all the land came to visit from New Zealand. One is my friend Ramy, the ex-lawyer turned chef extraordinaire. In the hopes that he might have time to cook me up a big fat pile of deliciousness, I decided that it was the perfect occasion for light bulb buying.
Let me backtrack a bit. I just started a new job. I ended my old job on May 1. My new job began on May 19. Between May 1 and May 19, I had two goals. One, go visit my good friends the Sousa-Brownells for drinking and tomfoolery in New York City. Two, buy some goddamn halogen light bulbs.
I hate you so much.
Goal one, I accomplished easily. (My liver might disagree with the “easily” part, but screw you liver. You regenerate. You don’t own me.) I went to New York City with a lot of money, and came back with no money and a dead liver. I know what happened to my liver. Not quite sure what happened to my money.
I either spent all my money on shoes, or I gave it to this guy.
So, my first goal went off without a hitch. Goal two? Not so much. I kept saying to my friend Suna, beginning in April, ”I gotta buy light bulbs.” ”Today I’m buying light bulbs.” “I should buy light bulbs online right now!” ”Do you think I can buy light bulbs on amazon.com?” Suna even offered to buy the light bulbs for me. And if you know her, and know how she’s the poorest rich girl in the world, you would know that she can’t even afford the gas to get to a purveyor of light bulbs, much less afford to actually buy halogen light bulbs, which, if you have ever noticed, are as expensive as fuck. But, bless her heart, she offered.
I couldn’t accept the offer, though. I mean, how ridiculous! I’m gonna have a friend buy me light bulbs? Hell, my mom who lives in Tucson friggin’ Arizona–my mom, for the love of all things light and bulby– offered to buy me light bulbs back in, like February. I said no, like some sort of unstoppable dumbass. ”No, Mom, I can buy my own light bulbs.”
Well, people, I obviously cannot. And there is obviously something seriously wrong with me.
So, as I was saying, my ex-pat Kiwi friends came to visit. They were arriving on Tuesday night. And so I decided to celebrate the occasion by buying light bulbs. I finally hit the Home Depot in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, about 3 hours prior to my friends’ scheduled arrival time.
Idea? What the heck is that? Nope, sorry, I ain't gots none of them there fancy ideas.
Of course I left my sample light bulb at home. So I wandered around the light bulb section of Home Depot, and finally chose two halogen light bulbs that I thought looked like the ones that I needed. I was going to buy just one, but then I thought, hey you might need an extra one eventually! You should get two!!
As I left the Home Depot, I was in such a good mood, you would think I had just cured cancer. I was so excited, I texted my friend, “I JUST BOUGHT LIGHT BULBS!!!!” ALLCAPS. When you say shit in ALLCAPS, you know it’s serious.
So my Kiwi friends arrive to a dark kitchen. Yes, I had bought the bulbs. No, I had not installed the bulbs. Finally Wednesday night, my friends all went out to a bar, and I stayed home like a good girl, and attempted to install these godless light bulbs. So I climb up onto my step ladder and lo and behold… I need THREE goddamn bulbs. I only have two, one of which I was planning to save for future light bulb emergencies! “Whatever,” I thought. “Two is sufficient.”
This cat is a phone expert.
I put the two in and excitedly flicked on the light switch. Nothing. I flicked it up and down repeatedly, as if that would help. Kind of like when people in the movies are on the phone get hung up on, and they keep pressing that button on the old school phones (you know what button I’m talking about) saying “Hello? Hello?” as if they don’t goddamn well know that pushing that particular button actually ends the call, and doesn’t magically make the person on the other end of the line reappear.
I don't know who this is a picture of, but it should be a picture of me.
So wouldn’t you know, the goddamn light won’t turn on. I assume it’s because all three bulbs have to be in the fixture at the same time for the light to work. It’s like going to a restaurant that won’t seat you until your entire party has arrived. My kitchen is an exclusive annoying restaurant that I would like to kill directly in the face, and I am a moron who can’t work a phone or a light switch. I’m dumber than a cat. I get back on the step ladder and start fiddling around with stuff. I’m surprised I didn’t electrocute myself.
Frustrated, I climbed off the step ladder. As if to mock me and say “hey, fuck you! we need another bulb up in here,” one of the light bulbs I had placed in the fixture fell out of the fixture and shattered all over the floor.
So now in my kitchen light fixture, which has been hanging precariously by its wires since January, sits one lonely light bulb.
And you know what? Fuck that orphan light bulb. I’m done with the whole buying of the light bulbs scenario. I will live in this apartment until the end of time and I will not buy another light bulb. HALOGEN? You’re DEAD TO ME.
ALL.CAPS.
Yep, I still hate you.