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EXTRA! Thomas Edison Rolls in Grave by B.R. Merrick Exclusive to STR March 19, 2008
In
case you didn’t know, the government has passed a law banning
the sale of What does this mean to you? Well, basically, it means that when you break a light bulb, all hell breaks loose with it. A trusty website that is usually on top of all these urban legends diminishes some of the more outrageous claims of what will happen when an energy-saving/ ozone-friendly/Leonardo DiCaprio-watching/Sheryl Crow-listening/child-hugging mercury light bulb breaks. However, if your stomach is in need of a little less acid and you can’t take reading the entire web page, take a look below at a heavily abbreviated list of procedures you will have to follow from now on when a damn bulb breaks: Ventilate
the Room .
. . OK, I’ll say it. Ventilate
the room??!!! Separate
Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces and Carpeted Surfaces Disposal
Instructions Hint:
You can’t throw them away anymore! Special
Steps for Future Cleaning of Carpeted Surfaces See,
if you break one of these
African-American-friendly/non-smoking/gay-daughter-accepting/
Jesus-was-a-hippie mercury bulbs, your carpet will apparently never be the
same again. I could go on and
on, but then I’d be wasting valuable broken-light-bulb-cleaning time, an
activity for which it will some day be necessary to have a degree, or at
least civil servant-level certification. I
don’t know about you, but I do not plan on engaging in this sort of
activity. I’d sooner revert
to oil
lamps. I may have to.
In the meantime, here are my suggestions for other free-marketeers
who, like me, hate the ozone layer along with nature, puppies, and uppity
Negroes: 1.
Whenever you are in a store, even to just browse or pick up toilet paper
(which is probably next on the government’s list of no-no’s), pick up
at least one pack of traditional light bulbs.
I figure I’m changing a bulb in one of my ceiling lamps once
every 2-3 months, and the others even longer.
I go through a 4-pack of light bulbs perhaps less than twice a
year. Your needs will vary
according to the number of night hours, housemates or family members,
lamps, etc. Sit down and do
the curmudgeonly math. For me
to get through one year, I figure I will need at least 6 bulbs, perhaps
more, so I’ll be safe and say 8. I’m
38 this year, and I plan on living a long, healthy life, so if I’m going
to live to 98, I need 480 light bulbs to last my entire lifetime.
A package of 4 traditional, name
brand bulbs currently costs a little over $2.50, or 63 cents a bulb.
That’s $300 for bulbs and 120 trips to the store.
Since I go to the store at least once a week, that means that in
less than 2 ½ years I will have a lifetime supply, sometime in late-2010,
more than a year before they’re no longer available in respectable
establishments. That’s not
so bad, is it? Remember,
we’re talking about a lifetime here.
If you’re a hardcore free-marketeer, purchase $600 worth, or even
$1,200 so that you can participate in the coming light bulb black market.
(If you’re like me, you’re kind of gettin’ ideas now
aren’tcha?) 2.
It’s not enough to stock up on light bulbs, in my mind.
I think we should write the corporations that are profiting
from death and destruction, not to mention the increase in price for these
new carpet-killing-but-earth-humping mercury bulbs, and inform them that
come 2012, we will no longer be buying their bulbs, as we now have a
lifetime supply. Here’s a
list to get you started: Feel
free to go to the store and look not only for other name brands, but for
ways to contact the store-brands as well, to inform them that they will
unfortunately be left with a great many kitty-caretaking/Mary-Poppins-viewing/HRC-voting/Christmas-carol-singing
mercury bulbs come 2012. You
may also wish to inform them of the lawsuits they will undoubtedly be
facing for all the unfortunate souls who have yet to discover Strike The
Root, who will be getting sick and dying due to the lack of one of the
greatest inventions of all time. Perhaps
these corporations will have a change of heart, and begin spending all
your light bulb millions on a new lobbying campaign to bring back what
you’re stocking up on. 3.
A word of caution: all this e-mailing will undoubtedly get back to your
elected representatives, who only have your
best interests in mind. Be
prepared not only for a crackdown on the light-bulb black market (or the
black-light bulb-market?), but a crackdown on homeowners who continue to
use Grand-Canyon-filling/cutest-little-kid-in-the-world-hating/Inconvenient-Truth-denying
light bulbs. If this is the
case, you not only have wasted several hundred dollars, but will be stuck
with throwing out one carpet after another if you buy in to the
government’s increasing levels of poison.
If you’d rather not sicken yourself and your loved ones with
spilled mercury, I seriously doubt you will be thrown in prison for
keeping all your other electronic devices while lighting your home with
oil lamps. Therefore, I think
they’re also worth stocking up on. Think
of it as a permanent camping vacation, rather than a permanent blackout on
reason, choice, freedom, liberty, and worst of all, truth. B.R.
Merrick lives in the Northeast, is proud
to be the #1,800,000-ish Reviewer at Amazon.com,
and in spite of the poisonous nature of television, God Himself will
have to pry his DVDs of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” out of his
cold, dead hands, under threat of eternal damnation.
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