August 14th, 2018

I don't know if you call tell or not, but there are 3 completely different sorts of bulbs in this light fixture.  I didn't know about this until yesterday. We have lived in this house for two years and change!  I just learned this yesterday! How crazy is that?

It's more than one sort of crazy really.  This 3-bulb light fixture/fan combination is in our bedroom, smack dab in the middle of the ceiling, as if it were a dining room,  which it is not, and therefore it kind of hangs over the end of the bed. It's kind of silly looking.  Then too, while it's a reasonably-sized bedroom, it's not large by any stretch of the imagination so a 3-bulb fixture is kind of overkill.  I rarely perform surgery in that room.  Also most 3-bulb fixtures allow you the option of having 1, 2 or all 3 bulbs turned on.  Not ours.  We have just the one ordinary regulation light type switch. It's either all on or all off so the 3 blub thingie is utterly wasted.

The final sort of crazy is how long those bulbs lasted.  When we moved in, every light switch that worked (note that point) turned on a light that was either a middle of the ceiling fixture/fan combo or a lamp.  The house was fully furnished when we bought it.  99.9% of the stuff in the house we sold to a used stuff guy.  He came in, walked through the house in absolute silence, mouthing words to himself as he wrote mysterious things on his clipboard while looking around.  He didn't take a great deal of time but he seemed very thorough  even so.  The following day, two guys and a big truck showed up and they cleaned house. I mean they took everything including the washer/dryer, pots and pans, towels and sheets, plant pots, furniture, lamps, hangers and artwork.  It was a clean sweep.  EXCEPT, he did not take lightbulbs or the installed light/fan thingies.  (he also didn't even look in the utility room so we got stuck with all of that crapola but that's a different story)

So we had overhead light if nothing else.  And it all worked so we didn't touch it.  Why would we?  The old, "If it ain't broke don't fix it" thing.  Oh periodically I shut the fans off to wipe down the fan blades but otherwise,  why would I mess with it if everything was working?

I'm not sure I even realized that only one bulb in the bedroom light fixture was working.  I just knew that when I flipped the switch, like magic, the light came on.  That was all I felt that I really needed to know.   Until yesterday. 

I walked into the room with an armload of clean sheets ready to re-dress the bed.  I raised the armload to light switch height and with my elbow (hands were full remember?) I flipped the switch. Except nothing happened.  I assumed that my elbow just did a remarkably poor job of an easy task.  I dropped the sheets on the bed and tried again, this time with my official light switch flipping finger. That's the index finger guys, be nice.  This time there was a single tiny pop and then more nothing.  Dang.

I shoved the sheets to one side and crawled up onto the bed (it's rather high) and looked up  into the light fixture, realized that there were three different bulbs in there, none of which are working, and burst out laughing.  It's a good thing I was already on the bed because it was easy to just lay down and relax into my laughter.  It just looked so ridiculous!

So for the record there was the one efficiency curlycue bulb - not working, one clear 75 watt bulb - also not working and one frosted "soft light"  45 watt bulb  - ditto.   I have no idea which one held out the longest, but bravo to that one. Two years is a long time to illuminate a room.

Once I pulled myself together I went out to the utility room and rummaged around hoping to find one bulb. Just one. Didn't care what the wattage or efficiency or relative softness was, just one bulb of any kind. Gotta have light. Eventually I unearthed one more clear 75 watter and replaced the existing one.  So once again we can see in the darkness. Yay!

But I'm uncertain what to do with those other bulbs. I mean, they don't work. On the other hand, we really only need the light of one bulb.  It looks rediculous, the mix of bulb types. Maybe I should invest in 3 much lower wattage bulbs and then all 3 would work but even I know that three 30 watt bulbs adds up to 90 and that's far more than I need in that room.  Hmmmm.  

It's clearly not an immediate problem.  I mean that last hold out bulb lasted for more than 2 years so I have time to figure this out. 

The funniest part to me is that while for two plus years I didn't know that we had mismatched bulbs in that light fixture, now that I know, I notice it every single time I walk into the room.  And every single time, I shake my head and chuckle.  Sometimes I'm so wierd.