I love my Halloween lights. They’re all purpley and orangey and not very scary but pretty in an ethereal kind of way. Too bad they're mostly dead.
Something happened to the light strings over the summer. Something bad. Something so bad in fact, that when I plugged them in I discovered that one of the strings had actually killed itself during the off season. I say suicide but the cause of death is not actually clear to me. All the bulbs are tightly in place and none are broken. There is no sign of violence at all. That said, the Christmas lights have kind of had it in for them, and not realizing at the time how strong the rivalry might be, I stupidly stored them together in the same bag, all summer long. Two reels of Christmas lights against one reel of Halloween lights meant the odds were stacked against the Halloween side from the moment I zipped up the bag.
Not willing to accept the obvious, I performed CPR on the Halloween lights by jiggling each bulb individually (they love it when you play with them), replacing the fuses (I'm an electrician!) and repeatedly shaking the string (the Neanderthal approach).
Nothing worked.
I started to remove each bulb individually and replacing them with new bulbs (a bulb transplant as a last resort), but after a huge amount of effort to get the first two bulbs dislodged and with a newly broken fingernail, I realized that A) the lights weren’t worth the cost of an actual manicure, B) I don’t have nearly enough replacement bulbs and C) none of this is going to work anyway because ultimately this is a cheap piece of holiday crapola made in China and only intended to last a year.
I moved on to string number two.
Not dead! But not really alive. It seems that this string also tried to kill itself over the summer and was only moderately successful (see above photo). Perhaps, like many suicide attempts, this was simply a cry for help. Perhaps this light string truly wanted to live. Perhaps this string had stood up to the taunts of the Christmas lights for months and months, thinking positive thoughts, clinging to life, waiting desperately for October to arrive.
I focused my CPR efforts on it.
Jiggle jiggle, new fuses, shake shake. Plug into socket.
A half line of pretty purpley organgey lights, then a longer line of dead ones.
Then a terrible thought hit me. What if the Halloween lights are actually being attacked by something other than the jealous Christmas lights? Oh my god! What if the Christmas lights are dead too?
I can’t look. My holiday spirit can’t take the blow.
What to do next? Obviously, string number one is going straight into the landfill. Lights that don’t light are of no use to me regardless of who or what may have killed them. Dead is dead and not very pretty.
However, string number two is still half alive. And while Miracle Max might be able to do something about this miserable I tried-to-kill-myself-but-couldn’t-go-through-with-it-half-string, I’m at a loss as to what to do.
Jiggle jiggle, shake shake.
Maybe this light string is just jerking me around. These are Halloween lights after all and not to be trusted. Maybe they’re not dead at all. Maybe they’re possessed. Uh huh.
I have a third light string which I bought the other day and will surely work as advertised for at least a year. So if I kill these half-bulbs (put them out of my misery), it’s not like I won’t have any lights when the kiddies come ‘round on Wednesday. (And for weeks after that, ‘cause that’s how it is at my house – the Christmas tree comes down in February).
But it bugs the hell out of me to put something that still halfway works in the landfill. It feels wasteful. But there is no way that I am going to break the rest of my fingernails trying to pull every single bulb out of the socket, replace it with another one and try again. So at best, barring a Halloween miracle, I will only ever have half a string.
I should just cut my losses, right?
Pull the plug one last time and chuck them.
After all, tomorrow is garbage day.