Did you know Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs (you know, those little swirly "environmentally-friendly" lightbulbs) are full of mercury? Yep, I did. Which is all fine well and dandy as long as you take your burned out bulbs for recycling and you don't break one.
Wait, what?
Crap.
Last night I was really tired but I was really grumpy and sick of sleeping in the same bed with Hitter (long story...) and I was full of beer and margaritas (who thought mixing the two would be a good idea?!?) so I sent Hitter to his bed and I headed to the guest room to read for a while (aka, stay awake until he falls asleep, and then I sleep in the guest room and am happy)
And then I tipped over my reading lamp.
And then my CFL broke.
Have I ever mentioned that any small tiny little bit of logic I have during daytime hours turns into a mass of paranoia in the middle of the night? It's really not pretty. That's why I always go to bed with my ipod ear buds in, but that isn't the point of this story.
Well considering this was midnight, so my freak-out-brain was in full freak-out mode, I decided this one broken bulb meant that I was going to die of mercury poisoning. I searched the internet, which is also a bad thing for a paranoid hypochondriac at midnight. Remember the triple-cancer-plus-AIDS episode? Right. I really shouldn't be allowed to be on the computer between sundown and sunrise. There are conflicting reports left and right on the interwebs... and not even tree-hugging-hippie pages vs I-just-can't-be-bothered-to-care websites. I mean one state's EPA vs another state's EPA. Some were all "well, yes mercury is bad but as long as you ventilate the room for 15 minutes and wear gloves while you remove all the broken glass, using sticky tape to pick up any remaining shards, you'll be okay" but others were "OMG WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! You need to remove the carpet, you need to get a HEPA mask, you need to not use that room for like months, maybe even call in an environmental disaster clean up crew to your house" *eye roll*
Did I mention I get paranoid in the middle of the night? Well I didn't tear out carpet or call the EPA disaster response crew. But I did open the window in the bedroom all night... and it was 14 degrees out. Somehow I think the furnace having to run extra canceled out any possible environmental benefits of using the CFL. (I would like to point out though that I was smart enough to close the door to that room... I didn't just have random open window straight to the thermostat. I'm only half stupid. In fact I even closed the floor vent and taped over the cold-air-return and stuffed a blanket under the door. I'm thorough like that)
And then I remembered that when I was a little kid, I bit the end off an old-fashioned mercury thermometer. Yeah, in my mouth. And then when I was a slightly older kid, I broke another thermometer in my mashed potatoes. (I didn't want to go to school the next morning so I thought "hey I'll stick this thermometer into my steaming hot food so it'll look like I have a fever! too bad the taters were about 3000 degrees and I exploded the thermometer)
So I think I'm either already a mad hatter, or I'm immune.
(Did you know that the phrase "mad as a hatter" came from mercury poisoning? no joke. I'm a veritable fountain of useless knowledge) (also, my great-grandma was a milliner. that might explain a lot)
Oh, and another symptom of mercury poisoning is mood swings. I told Hitter today on the way home from church that I've been pretty steadily pissed off for the last 3 days, so a mood swing would be a welcome change. There's nowhere to go but up.
I don't think I'm poisoned. I'll let you know if I start trembling violently. My drawings will get worse. Or better, I'm not sure.
And I'm going to stockpile old-fashioned lightbulbs.
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