Addiction

I have a confession to make. I have an addiction, it occasionally gets in the way of me leading a productive life, but more often that not, it makes me the subject of ridicule from my wife and child. When it rears its’ head, they both just look and me and shake their heads, my son will occasionally break out in out in derisive laughter. That is hard to take from a 13 year old. I suppose I could seek some sort of help for this, but I’d prefer to deal with it on my own.

My addiction: Solar powered yard lights!

See, you are laughing too.

This is serious.

I have it mostly in control bet every so often it rears its head and I have a deep personal battle of the will.

It started out simply enough; the back yard can be dark at night, and there are no lights on the rear of the house. I bought the first two as sort of nightlights for the path from the gat to the door. They weren’t very bright but they did the trick and those sufficed for a couple of years. As we improved the yard with plantings and replaced the cyclone fence with a wooden one, the lighting needed upgrading as well. I went on to my favorite online auction site for electronics Ubid and found a couple of sets of 4 for a few dollars a piece. The new ones were sleek and shiny chrome, and the LEDs we re clear white and much brighter than the original ones, when the garden fills out they look really cool glowing in amongst the plants at night. Being the lazy sot that I am I didn’t bother to being them in during the winter, but I found that they looked equally cool at night in the snow. Since then I have often eyed the lights in various stores, thinking how they might look in the yard.

They are now a couple of years old and the weather has taken it’s toll on them; the batteries don’t take a charge as well, and the solar cells are getting flakey from being exposed the elements 24/365. It is time to replace some of them and maybe even add to the total.

I returned to Ubid earlier in the spring and again found a set of four for a couple of dollars apiece. These ones are color-changing no less, now how cool is that? I placed my order and waited. When the order arrived I found that they had accidentally doubled it sending me 8 instead of 4. Double Cool!

Suddenly I am seeing sets of solar powered yard lights every store I visit. Home Depot has them, the grocery store has then even the drug store is selling them. The worst of all is Costco; they must have a dozen sets. There are the copper ones that look like antique coach lanterns, and there is the French Provincial ones with curving sensuous shapes. There is a set that looks like champaign flutes where the whole body of the light is illuminated. There is even as set that is reminiscent of the old bubbler Christmas tree lights.

I want them all!

Having lusted after them on previous visits, on our last visit to Costco I couldn’t resist and purchased the set that had been tugging the hardest at me. Mrs. looked at me with bemused chagrin as I put them in the shopping cart. This was a set of 4 lights; each copper shaft with a small colored glass ball with an LED inside, surrounding the ball is a copper figure of either the sun or the moon. Did I mention that the light change color too? They look almost magical as they glow and change in the dark. I can’t wait to get them out in the yard when the plants start coming up.

I am afraid to go back to Costco, because I know that I will not be able to resist those champaign flutes ones, and we are due for another trip this week. On the other hand, maybe I’ll just swing by after work and pick up a set.

If I have my count correct, I have about 20 working solar yard lights. That may not seem like a lot but you need to understand that the yard is only 25 feet on a side. We know people with larger living rooms than our yard! One part of me says is it totally out of control, and another part says the more the merrier. It is a serious internal battle, and I am worried that the ‘more’ side is winning out.

I think that I might be getting a little eccentric in my middle age. This has me worried as well. Just the other day I was talking with the boy and mentioned that one of the denizens of the neighborhood was a ‘character’ and he replied, “Well you know dad, you are a bit of a character too.”

Out of the mouths of babes, or at least 13-year olds…

I am doomed, I tell you, doomed.