Light Bulb Day

So yesterday was light bulb day here at the station (s) as our maintenance guy made his way around the building with new fluorescent bulbs, evil things that they are, to replace any that had died and gone to whatever Dante’s hell circle it is that is lit by dead fluorescent bulbs. Probably a place with IMAX sized Hieronymus Bosch paintings, except intentionally more perverse and disturbing, where the bright starkness of the light brings out even more explicit and unsettling detail than you would ever want to see but now can never be UNseen.   

I hate light bulb day.

When one or two of the devil’s light sticks go out around the building here it’s kind of a relief and makes for a much softer setting that doesn’t feel that as much of your soul is being sucked out of you (my studio, at least, is lamp-lit). But then comes Dennis, accompanied by some dark, foreboding deep bass soundtrack that makes time with his slow steps, he even seems to laugh for no reason (or he’s joking with Jimmy around the corner) as he enters the worst of spots in the building to make sure all the demonic lighting eye javelins are working at once … the Men’s room.

Stepping in there the first time after Satan’s assistant has ironically said “let there be light” when done I realize exactly why it is that of the three light bulb possibility I have in the lighting fixture in my bathroom at home that I use only one … and just a 60 watter.

No one needs to see themselves in this kind of light when looking in the mirror while washing hands, ever, especially not a guy who, as he gets older, has hair he forgets needs trimming coming from places you only noticed when you were younger in uncomfortable “can’t take my eyes off of” stares at some other old but back then guy. When you wondered exactly how eyebrows could unintentionally form points over each eye like horns (damn you Devil and your lights AND eyebrows!) how an ear could appear to be a planter of some sort of stringy exotic bush, how a nose could … no, I ain’t even going there.

And you wondered then how that some other old but back then guy didn’t notice these things and do a bit of trimming of the hedges unless, of course, he also used only one 60 watt bulb in his bathroom, or unless, of course, maybe you had somehow become him and now that younger you, on the other side of the mirror, is fixed with an uncomfortable “can’t take my eyes off of” YOU stare.   

I hate light bulb day.