I have an idea

In a simpler, more analog time, I would have been in the store, out the store, in my car and atop the step ladder in all of 10 minutes.

The bulb that had gone out in our bedroom would have been replaced.

And I wouldn't have to hear about it and hear about it and hear about it, for another two years or so.

But we don't live in those times do we?

Instead of popping into my local mom and pop hardware store, where I can still buy wing nuts and a good old fashioned rubber plunger, I had to venture down Jefferson to the Home Depot, a wholly owned subsidiary of the GOP and the Nazi party.

There you will find not one but two aisles of wall to wall lightbulbs.

Bulbs of every shape and size.

Bulbs that emit light in every shade of the rainbow.

And most confusing, bulbs in every variation and combination of watts, ohms, and volts.

I may be a Luddite, but I can do a fair job matching the size and shape of the old bulb to the size and shape of the new one.

It's all the other criteria that make beg the question, "how many rocket scientists does it take to change a lightbulb?"

What's Bright Light? How is it different that Day Light? What's Soft Light? And what if I want a Bright Soft Light? Are those bulbs in a different aisle?

Also which ones are the bright blueish lights? Those are the ones that drive my wife crazy and I don't need her crazy when the official NFL season is about to start.

Not for nothing, but it's been a long, long time since I took a high school or college level physics class. So this whole watts/ohms/volts nomenclature is a tad confusing.

I'm no dummy, though lately (perhaps because I have worn out my social media welcome mat) I've been called quite a few names, many of them a lot more colorful than dummy, I can still synch up the markings on the old bulbs to the packaging on the new ones. That is if I could read the damn thing.

The markings are either angstrom small or they're printed on the bulbs in invisible ink.

When it was all said and  done, I brought the $18, 2 inch high, halogen, 100 watt, 20V bulb and, careful not to touch the bulb itself because oil emitted from human skin can ignite the bulb, I tried to install it.

That's when I realized I had purchased the screw cap when I should have bought the bayonet cap.

Oh you didn't know bulbs came in bayonet caps?

"What's a bayonet cap?", you ask.

I rest my case.