Blinky The Flourescent Light Bulb

In honor of my friend Mark visiting from California, I present to you the first "rescue" from my pile of old floppy discs in the cellar:  The story of Blinky the Lightbulb.

"Blinky, The Flourescent Light Bulb"

It all started one morning this summer. When I turned on the light to take my morning shower, the light began to blink! Now, that wasn't so strange, because lights do that-especially flourescent lights, because they have to wake up in the morning, too, just like people do. 

 

But the light kept on blinking the whole time I took my shower, and then brushed my teeth and combed my hair. And that whole day every time someone turned the light on, it would blink. Then a whole week. Then a whole month! 

 

After a few weeks, we all began to be happy to see "our" light blinking in the morning. It seemed to have a personality! So we named it Blinky, and we talked to it whenever we went into the bathroom. "Good Morning, Blinky!", we would say. "How are you today?" [blink] [blink] He would respond. 

 "What does the weather look like today?" [blink] [blink]. Nothing could bring down Blinky's cheerfulness. If one of us was having a bad day, we'd go talk to Blinky, and he'd cheer us up. "I'm sad, Blinky", I'd say, and he would reply [blink] [blink] 

 

And so our lives continued together for the rest of that summer. We had so many good times with Blinky. He was always there for us. No matter what else was going on in our lives, Blinky always remained the same. 

 

But then one day, I went into the bathroom for my morning shower, and turned on the light like every other day. But something was different. The light wasn't blinking. Blinky was gone! What had happened? Where was he? My head began to spin with the possibilities.

We were all very sad that Blinky wasn't around anymore. It wasn't as easy to wake up in the morning without Blinky there to say [blink] [blink], his way of saying a cheerful "Good Morning!". But we all slowly forgot about the sadness of losing Blinky. 

Until yesterday. I got my morning shower, got ready for class, and walked down the stairs to my car. And what should I see as I reached the bottom but [BLINK] [BLINK]! Blinky had come back! I said hello, and asked him "Where have you been?" But all he said was [blink]. I said, "Did you miss us?" [blink] [blink] [blink].

I told all my friends. And they all came by and said hello to Blinky, too. 

And that is my story of how my friends and I came to love a lightbulb, and how it went away, and came back home.