Profiling Is Wrong

Awhile back I swapped out the ordinary fluorescent bulbs in my office for Ottlite “natural sunlight” bulbs. They were awesome and, incidentally, my office plants started growing like they thought they really had a chance to go wild and free. I felt a little guilty at the deception, especially when they shifted and started climbing towards the lights instead of the window. That has to be the ultimate betrayal for a plant. Sorry. I did it. It was me.

My plant caretaker lady even commented on it. My office was quickly turning into The Land That Time Forgot and she had to get aggressive with her pruning shears.

Unfortunately, these bulbs apparently burn out at an alarming rate for what amounts to an incredibly expensive exploding light fixture.  

I finally called the maintenance guy to come in and replace my funky white lights with the ordinary weird yellow-glow fluorescent bulbs that are probably giving everybody underarm cancer or otherwise shortening our lifespans. Whatever. I'm a slave to economy just like everybody else. So what if my eyesight, health and attitude pay the price?

He was immediately unimpressed with my sunlight-light installation and seemed a bit under the weather, or at least I gathered he’d been having a rough day from the steady torrent of invective he kept up under his breath from atop the ladder.

Those lights look funny. They ain’t right.

No. Errrr. Yes. They’re like sunlight.

No. They lightbulbs.  That sunlight (pointing at window).

Well, ah. Yes. That is – no. I mean that IS sunlight. This is like sunlight.

Look like a lightbulb that don’t work to me. Sun working just fine.

Well I mean I bought them to get more sunlight in here.

(walks to window, opens blinds)

Like that?

...Yes.

I retreated into the depths of my desk chair like a startled turtle and frantically pretended to be busy by placing the phone to my ear upside-down and repeatedly pounding the "enter" key on my computer hoping that he'd kind of melt away.  He didn't - and his muttering got somewhat less verbal and more like a series of angry symbols, but I did catch one last phrase as he snapped his ladder shut and trailed out the door carrying an armload of my expensive, nonfunctional lightbulbs.

.....White People.