Ahh yes. Lightbulb triage. I’ll get to that in a minute. There seems to be a heated discussion over light bulbs. (no pun intended) (really!) Or, at least over the word lightbulb. Should it be a compound word? Should it be two words. I never wondered or even cared until I decided to write this post. I looked it up on my favorite search engine, and every other post said something different, leading to my decision: every time I write it I will change it up.
So, light bulb triage is a term that I made up to explain the following mindset, and series of actions: A lightbulb burns out, and you have no backups, so you take a bulb from somewhere else in the house, a bulb that you consider the least important. Now, you still have one burned out bulb, but it is in a room that you don’t use too often. Since you keep forgetting to buy them at the store, when the next one goes out and you need it, you have to find the second least important bulb (you’ve already taken the least important earlier this week). When another goes out, you take the third least important, and so on. Then all of the sudden your wife asks you to get the Christmas wrapping paper out of the attic. You go up there, but all the working bulbs have been stolen and placed in more important positions. (At least, they were more important until you needed to see in the attic.) You have now entered the light bulb triage stage.
There are now four working bulbs in the house, and you need to steal one to see in the attic. The triage comes in when you are deciding which is NOW the least important. You would take the one in the living room, but your wife is working in there. You would take the one in the middle room, but your wife would see you taking it because it’s right next to the living room. (If she sees you she will just tell you to go to the store and buy more, but this is something to be avoided at all costs.)
You now have to decide between the kitchen and the bathroom. Which one can you live without? Which one of these two rooms will your wife likely go to next? If you steal a bulb from the kitchen, can you make it to the attic, get the wrapping, and make it back down and put the bulb back in the kitchen before your wife notices? Will you burn your hand? This, ladies and gentlemen, is what life is all about. The pressure, the decisions, the CHALLENGE!!! It’s why people decide to become doctors.
(I think compound word should be a compoundword – just two more of my cents)
Matthew Bennett 