illumination, or the lack thereof

It seems that light fixtures and I have a rather tempestuous relationship. (See: exploding light bulb in my cheesecake and dance party bathroom.) I have no idea why this is. I am a fan of light. ('Cuz without it, it's, um, dark. And I manage to bang my shins on enough things without the aid of the pitch black, thankyouverymuch.) I am even a fan of light fixtures, as evidenced by the Mullet Lamp.

The Mullet Lamp?

The Mullet Lamp.

Who lives on Drury Lane?

Oh, wait.

Back to the lamp.

The Mullet Lamp, also known as the lamp of many colors, is a 5-headed floor lamp purchased at Target at some point during my college career. And when it lived with us in Brumler junior year, my friends and I took to rearranging its lamp "tentacles" into various designs:

(Yes, these are actual photos from that apartment.)

(Yes, they were taken with the express purpose of preserving on film "The Many Moods of the Mullet Lamp.")

(Yes, I am a dork.)

The design in the lower right, you will notice, closely resembles that famous "business in front, party in back" haircut referred to as the mullet.

Hence the Mullet Lamp.

So why someone like me, who clearly has a special place in her heart for light fixtures - or one, anyway - should be attacked (literally, in one case!) by them in the rest of life is beyond me.

I think it's even rubbing off on my car.

I thought about this today as I stood at the back of my car with the hatch open, replacing a burned out taillight. Yesterday the left blinker started doing that spastic-poodle hyper-blink thing. "Drat," I thought to myself. "Gotta go and buy a bulb." And so today, on my way home from the dentist, I headed in the direction to do just that. And that got me thinking about the last time I changed a rear blinker bulb.

It was the summer of 2008, my very first summer at VanderCook. I was there for an intensive one-week class known as a MECA. And no sooner did I get off the expressway at 35th St. than my right blinker started doing that crazy-blink routine. "Great," I thought. "Just great." There I was, in a part of the city I didn't know at all, with a car with a burned out light. (See? Light bulb hatred. At least the one this week happened at home.) Now at this point I'd only owned the car for a little more than a year, and I'd never changed an auto bulb before. (However, I did help my Dad install a variety of hose clamps on my first car... We always joked that at some point that thing would fall apart, a la the Bluesmobile, and be nothing but a pile of scraps and hose clamps.)

Anyway, after checking in and dropping off my stuff, I headed to Jimmy John's to grab some dinner and asked the nice lady at the register where the nearest auto parts place might be. Some vague directions and a lot of meandering (in a none-too-spiffy part of town) later, I found one, went inside, located the bulb I needed, bought it, borrowed a screwdriver, and changed the bulb in the parking lot.

Phew.

Crisis averted.

And so today, as I was on my way to pick up another bulb, I pictured the store in Chicago where I'd bought the last one, saw it hanging on the rack, remembered the slightly-scary lady at the checkout from whom I borrowed the screwdriver...

And then it dawned on me.

Those darn things came in 2-packs.

As I came to a stop at the next traffic light I opened up the glove box and sure enough - there inside was a leftover bulb from last summer.

Isn't it funny how I'd forgotten all about the extra bulb until just then? What can I say... I guess I just had one of those "light bulb" moments.

(I'm sorry. That was terrible. Feel free to groan at will.)