YOU LIGHT UP MY LIVING ROOM

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So there I was, sitting outside with my dogs, when I saw a beautiful shooting star.

I sat there for a moment, pondering the infiniteness of the world, when it occurred to me: there shouldn’t be shooting stars in my living room.

I ran inside and into the living room, getting there about the same time that my wife did from the back of the house. Whereas I had seen a falling flame, she had heard a pop. And, no big surprise, it was not a shooting star but instead a light bulb. Or, rather, what used to be a light bulb but had opted to become its own little supernova and explode in my living room.

My wife and I began to survey the damage. Glass was all over the place. There were little burns marks in the rug, and the bulb filament was still glowing a nice orange. Fortunately, none of the shrapnel landed on anything else, like a pile of newspapers or my head. I looked up at the ceiling to see if any of the other bulbs were planning on doing a repeat performance, which was probably a stupid thing to do, because had another light exploded, I would have gotten hot glass in my eye which, I’m guessing, would kinda hurt.

As we began collecting the pieces of glass, we determined the brand of bulb that had burst. (Nice alliteration, huh?) It was about 11:00 on a Friday night, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to talk to someone at that company right then. I felt that it was reasonable to ask them to pay for my damaged rug, and also was probably a good idea to let them know that their bulbs were exploding.

I found an 800-number and called them. To my utter disbelief, no one was there late on a Friday night. I began randomly pushing buttons, hoping to stumble across some ambitious young go-getter working late. On about the third random push, a live voice answered. Unfortunately, the live voice was attached to Ben, a security guard who (a) apparently accidentally answered the phone and (b) was probably on the intellectual level of the phone itself. Ben didn’t know what to do. "Is it still exploding?" Ben, Ben, Ben. I told Ben I would call back on Monday and speak to someone who did not have a bag of cat litter for a brain. Ben thought that was a good idea, and went back to doing whatever it is Ben does.

On Monday, I finally got through to someone in the So Your Bulb Exploded Department. As I told John (who was much smarter than Ben) my story, it was met with the occasional "Hmmm" or "I see." Noticing John was not the conversationalist I had hoped for, I said, "You know, I’m not going to sue your company. I don’t want to retire from this. I just want my $50 area rug paid for. That’s all I’m looking for."

At that point, John became a babbling brook. I said those magic words "I’m not going to sue" and he was more than happy to help me! He explained the various things that could cause a bulb to burst, and told me he was sending me a box so that I could ship the bulb pieces back to the company so they could examine it and determine the cause. He also asked that I send in a price for the replacement rug. ("You mean my antique $450,000 oriental rug?" Rats. Should have said that.)

A few weeks later, I received a letter in the mail, along with a check for the rug. Attached was a letter stating that, basically, if I signed that check, I could not sue the company, which, if you recall, I already said I wasn’t going to do. I am not a big fan of frivolous lawsuits. I don’t think the legal system was intended to be a lottery for clumsy or unlucky people. The folks at the bulb company, however, did not know my personal stance on lawsuits of this nature, and uncaged one of their attack attorneys to write the accompanying letter, which I will excerpt:

"This offer is made under the condition that acceptance on your part shall constitute your agreement to release and forever discharge BULB COMPANY, its successors, parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, assigns, insurers, agents, servants, distributors and employees, of and from all actions, causes of action, claims or demands for damages or any other things whatsoever on account of or in any way growing out of the above referenced incident."

I’m not positive, but I don’t think I can ever sue anyone for anything for the rest of my life. In case you’re wondering, yes, I did sign the check. After all, I needed to replace the rug. I’m thinking about trying to find one that’s made of asbestos.