Question: How Many Zoomers does it take to change over to Compact Florescent Bulbs?
Answer: 1, but she has to be really stubborn.
We are ever so fortunate to work in a beautiful, creative and energizing environment. Not only do we get to fraternize with four legged co-workers, we’re also the recipients of daily feeding, encouragement and a camaraderie that borders on, and sometimes crosses over to, the familial. We’re not just fortunate, we’re plain damn lucky.
Last year I got a whim, as I am wont to do, that since we were already recycling, we should step it up a notch and convert our lighting over to The Compact Flourescents. Easy you say! No. We have 10 very different, very stylish light sources scattered throughout our studio. Each of them of course, takes a different size and wattage. And so, friends, I began my quest. The small spots? Those were easy! Our Magnificent Modernicas? No Problem! The primary Studio can lights? Insert the sound of screeching tires and honking horns with a side of cursing.
I purchased my first batch at Lux Lighting in the Pearl. It seemed so easy, so convenient — I walked in, showed them my spot and they immediately came forth with a box of attractive (and expensive) compact florescent replacements! I returned to the studio reeking of victory until we actually plugged one in over Robin’s work station and she broke out the sunscreen. Too bright? Uh, yeah. By about 50 Zillion watts. And that was just one bulb. Had we replaced them all, Zoom Creates would have been readily apparent from space. We’re big on The Self Promotion here, but the additional cost for trauma counseling would have negated any positive ROI we hoped to achieve.
Five lighting stores later, I finally end up at Sunlan Lighting in the Mississippi district, a cramped, claustrophobic but well-lit shop that carries literally thousands of different bulbs. Fortunately, the owner has a personal relationship with every single one of them. I held up the offensive energy-sucking halogen spot as the replacement suspect and she leapt into action. Well, okay, she called to her erstwhile assistant, Tim, who leapt to action, leading me through the winding labyrinth of shelves to the end of my grail trail. Or so I thought.
Mrs. Knightly is fond of saying that everything here at Zoom Creates is precious. Not precious like a kitten, but precious like how if you drive a Volvo, that fantastic advertised offer for a $49.99 oil change goes up to $149.99 as soon as you drive in the parking lot. Or perhaps an even better euphemism is “We bought them for form rather than function.”
I brought the 2nd batch of spots ‘home’ and tasked G-Reg and Notorious O.L.D with testing them. N.O.L.D came to me a while later with a hang-dog expression and a dangling spot fixture in his hand. “No go, June, they’re too big.” After a moment of stunned silence, I replied calmly and with no small amount of politeness, “TOO BIG? They’re the same freaking size as the other ones!” That several folks came up to check on us just goes to show the level of caring and concern we have for each other around here. It’s heartwarming, really.
Just as the map is not the terrain, The End Result, is not The End. So, I failed in finding a suitable compact florescent replacement bulb for the studio spots. I sleep just fine at night … Except when I wake up screaming after dreaming about finding CFL’s for the saucer lights, which I’m told require a forearm the size of a mouse in order to even change the bulbs. How precious is that?
Tags: Zoomers
Uncanny insight into the world of light.