Backstory on the light bulb:
Before buying our house, we knew the current owners strived (What do you mean strived isn't a word? Get outta here, little red squiggly line.) to be green, in a variety of ways. They had a composter, a low-flow toilet, and a rain barrel, just to name a few things. Their master bedroom had space for four light bulbs, yet they kept less than that in there. Based on all the other energy efficiencies, I figured that was the case for the bulbs.
Fast forward to present day, ya know seven months later when I wished I had a little more light in that room. But of course, I waited until it was just the dog and I when I chose to buy and replace the bulbs. I've replaced bulbs before, these should be no sweat. I turned the lights off, removed the bad bulbs and put a new one in. I turned the lights back on, just to see if two bulbs would provide the light I wanted. It did, so I spent a little time folding clothes and basking in my newly-found light.
Not five minutes into putting my clothes away, the new light goes out. Seeing as I did not have a ladder to stand on to put the bulb into the ceiling fan, it was obviously not screwed in tight, right? Without turning the light off, I reach up and twist the bulb slightly to the right. BAM. Light bulb explodes, starts smoking, and the smell of burning something (dust?) fills the air. I bring the remainder of the light bulb down, looking for fire. No fire to be found, but I also couldn't find the inside of the bulb. Knowing I had to capture this moment of a broken light bulb smoking with no fire in sight, I took some photos.
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| Ok, so it didn't quite explode...but it shattered...and almost killed me. Yep. |
None of which show the extreme amount of smoke in them, c'mon iPhone, get it together. With it being 11:30 at night and no one to discuss this situation with, I texted my parents: "Whoever wants to troubleshoot an exploding light bulb situation should call after 9am tomorrow." Without missing a beat, my dad replies: "Unplug offending light. Talk tomorrow." Later I find out that he leaves his phone at the foot of the bed and the train choo choo sound was too much to take.
The next morning, after the initial shock of almost being killed by an exploding light bulb wore off, I was ready to get the rest of the bulb from the socket (with audio help from both my parents via phone). Needle-nose pliers and a flashlight in hand, I stood on the bed to get close to the ceiling light. At Dad's suggestion, I tried to pry it away from the socket (after cutting the electric to that room) with no luck. In fact, little pieces of glass and metal came shooting out of the remainder of the bulb. So, much to my dismay, I had to follow Mom's advice: "Wait until Justin comes home, having two people handle this project will be easier." Yeah, there's no way Rosie the dog will be able to drive me to the ER with shards of glass in my eye.
As I haven't posted in many months, I'm going to hold off on the skunk story until later this week. Hopefully I'll have nothing new to report...stay tuned.
