By: Mary Fran Bontempo
To hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.

 

Apparently, I’m not the only one with light bulb issues.

During Sunday’s Super Bowl, the lights went out in the New Orleans Superdome.

Out. During the Super Bowl. Tell me that’s not going to freak you out, especially if you’ve spent a fortune on tickets and going to the game is your dream and you’re sitting there screaming with excitement and then all of a sudden it’s dark. And quiet, because no one knows what the hell is going on and everyone is scared witless, minutes away from panic.

Yeah, sign me up for the next big crowd event at a stadium.

Anyway, we’re having some lighting issues of our own, here at the Bontempo household, inspiring a milder form of panic, but as of yet, I haven’t run screaming from the building. (Okay, I’ve done that for other reasons before, but not this time.)

This time, the issue is the disappearance of 100 watt light bulbs.

Apparently, last year, the production of 100 watt light bulbs was halted due to their lack of energy efficiency. And now, 75 watt bulbs are shortly due to suffer the same fate.

How did I not know this? I’ll tell you how: I don’t think about light bulbs until they blow out. Then I go to the cabinet in the laundry room, get a new 100 watt bulb, and replace the bulb.

I love 100 watt light bulbs. I love light. I’m one of those people who goes into mourning when daylight savings time comes around. The brighter, the better. So when I went to the store recently and couldn’t find any of my old 100 watt bulbs, I was confused. Then, my daughter informed me of the ban on my babies and I was stricken.

Obviously, other light-loving consumers had heard of this development before I did and were stockpiling any 100-watters they could find, along with 75 watt bulbs, in anticipation of their coming banishment. So I was left with 60’s, which might as well be candle light as far as I’m concerned.

I shouldn’t have any problem with any of this in theory, as I’m a huge proponent of green energy. But the alternatives to my 100 watt bulbs are expensive and many of them contain traces of mercury, making safe disposal problematic. Plus, they look funny.

I’ve taken to prowling the aisles of every home improvement store, grocery and drug store I can find in the dwindling hope that I might discover a few of my beloved bulbs hidden on a back shelf somewhere. Today, I started stalking the internet. Is there a Facebook fan page for 100 watt bulbs?

I know I should just suck it up and get with the new, energy-efficient program. And I will, right after I run out of the ten packages of 100 watters I just bought on Ebay.

As for the lights going out at the Superdome? I’ll bet they were some of those new-fangled bulbs.

I just don’t trust those things.

Have any 100 watt bulbs you’d like to sell? Click “comments” below and share! (And CALL ME!)