The Dark Side of Christmas
You heard it here first. Remember this later, when you see this in the news. Some poor schumck is going to die, or at least loose a limb after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I promise you it's coming. Maybe not this year, but definitely at some point in time.
It's "Christmas Light Rage". You heard me. "Christmas Light Rage".
Picture "Road Rage", only you're in your own house, wrestling with length after length of Christmas lights.
So it's Christmas. You're happy. You've got your tree up, and all the decorations are down from the attic. You've got three very large, very full bags of Christmas lights: one of working lights, one of lights that have only 50% working lights, and one that's full of lights that don't work at all, but you can't bear to throw them out. Ever. (No matter how much your husband begs you!)
So you're sitting there with your lights. You open the boxes you bought last year at Target two days after Christmas when you had to wade through crowds to fight for the scant few boxes they had left after the holidays - lights marked down from $9.99 a strand to $2.99. You can't beat that, right? They go straight up into the attic to wait for Christmas the following year.
When they completely fail to light up. OR, better yet, they work when you test them, and then as you're wrapping the last length around the tree, they go out.
Christmas. Light. Rage.
And then, you decide that BY GOD you are going to get one of those half-working strands to WORK, dammit, because you simply MUST have another multicolor on the tree and so you sit down and test, one bulb after another, about 100 bulbs, prying them off with a tiny flat-head screwdriver. Only five or six times does it slip and plunge into your thigh as it dislodges a bulb. And only ONCE does the entire bulb shatter between your fingers, making you wonder, what's more frightening: all the tiny shards of yellow glass that narrowly miss imbedding themselves into your fingertips, or those little popping zzzzzt zzzzzt zzzzzt sparks from the wires on the still plugged-in strand so close to your body?
And at the end, although you replace a few burned out bulbs, the strand still doesn't light fully.
Christmas. Light. Rage.
So you go online, and research Christmas lights, and you learn about series circuits and parallel circuits and you go back out to the strand with a newfound purpose, and THIS TIME, you pull out each one of those bulbs again, but you test each bulb in a working strand already on your tree. You replace some more faulty bulbs.
And your strand still doesn't work.
And now you have two large blisters on your thumb and forefinger.
And the light strand on your tree you were using to test inexplicably goes out.
Christmas. Light. Rage.
This is a true story.
My husband wisely says nothing, but hands me a glass of wine. I throw the half working strand into the light strand "trash" bag (that will never be thrown away) and call a Jewish friend and learn that, wonder of wonders, he doesn't use lights. Next year, we're going with Hanukkah, mark my words.
It's "Christmas Light Rage". You heard me. "Christmas Light Rage".
Picture "Road Rage", only you're in your own house, wrestling with length after length of Christmas lights.
So it's Christmas. You're happy. You've got your tree up, and all the decorations are down from the attic. You've got three very large, very full bags of Christmas lights: one of working lights, one of lights that have only 50% working lights, and one that's full of lights that don't work at all, but you can't bear to throw them out. Ever. (No matter how much your husband begs you!)
So you're sitting there with your lights. You open the boxes you bought last year at Target two days after Christmas when you had to wade through crowds to fight for the scant few boxes they had left after the holidays - lights marked down from $9.99 a strand to $2.99. You can't beat that, right? They go straight up into the attic to wait for Christmas the following year.
When they completely fail to light up. OR, better yet, they work when you test them, and then as you're wrapping the last length around the tree, they go out.
Christmas. Light. Rage.
And then, you decide that BY GOD you are going to get one of those half-working strands to WORK, dammit, because you simply MUST have another multicolor on the tree and so you sit down and test, one bulb after another, about 100 bulbs, prying them off with a tiny flat-head screwdriver. Only five or six times does it slip and plunge into your thigh as it dislodges a bulb. And only ONCE does the entire bulb shatter between your fingers, making you wonder, what's more frightening: all the tiny shards of yellow glass that narrowly miss imbedding themselves into your fingertips, or those little popping zzzzzt zzzzzt zzzzzt sparks from the wires on the still plugged-in strand so close to your body?
And at the end, although you replace a few burned out bulbs, the strand still doesn't light fully.
Christmas. Light. Rage.
So you go online, and research Christmas lights, and you learn about series circuits and parallel circuits and you go back out to the strand with a newfound purpose, and THIS TIME, you pull out each one of those bulbs again, but you test each bulb in a working strand already on your tree. You replace some more faulty bulbs.
And your strand still doesn't work.
And now you have two large blisters on your thumb and forefinger.
And the light strand on your tree you were using to test inexplicably goes out.
Christmas. Light. Rage.
This is a true story.
My husband wisely says nothing, but hands me a glass of wine. I throw the half working strand into the light strand "trash" bag (that will never be thrown away) and call a Jewish friend and learn that, wonder of wonders, he doesn't use lights. Next year, we're going with Hanukkah, mark my words.