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Thomas Edison would not be a happy man if he were alive today. The bulb he invented eliminated darkness initially. Now the green heads claim that those inefficient bulbs are making the polar bears sweat in Antarctica.

Until 15 years back, the only other option apart from a light bulb was the 2000 feet long tube light, which no one liked apart from the large corps. Then one guy decided to shrink the tube light and sell it instead. GE had invented that concept, but shelved it as it involved high investment. The idea leaked (My guesses are, it would have an Indian) and even the kid next door started making them. GE is still shedding tears for not patenting it.

So last month I decided to help the polar bears and changed all bulbs I use often. To the (high profit making) energy saving lamps. A normal bulb hardly uses less than 25% (as efficient as a Russian) of the energy supplied to produce light. The rest 75% is given out as heat. No thanks, that's why houses have heaters. After being burnt twice and electrocuted thrice, I changed all of them. There were two dozen bulbs sitting on my table later. 

I did the math, and my electricity bill should reduce by 20% and would not feel that guilty if the lights are misused. I got my bill last weekend and it was twice the normal amount. I was so mad, I wanted a polar bear for dinner. But later realised that there was something else which was wrong. The only thing different from last month was, that the lamps were holding the spaghetti bulbs now.

I called up the electricity company (Comed) to question the increase. They said it was because I used more electricity. Thanks Einstein. I said there could be something wrong with the meter and wanted them to check it. They defended saying their meters are more accurate than the atomic clock. Wanted me to wait for one month, then call again if not satisfied and slammed the phone down. All this was coming from person who skipped school. I turned to the builder to check for a electricity leak. He blamed the accurate meter too.

I decided to get to the bottom of this and realized I was using over 30KWh a day. Which is, too much for one laptop running on battery and two spaghetti bulbs. I switched off my laptop, bulbs and checked the meter. It was still spinning like a mad man. I checked if my neighbors were stealing my supply. No. The city. No. Later I found the culprit after changing bulbs, disconnecting appliances, unplugging fuses, etc. It was a stupid sump pump in the basement which kept running 24*7. The sensor had gone cuckoo just like Bush.

In the process, I learnt how much electricity anything on earth exactly uses for a given time. I know how the meter works and how fast it will spin when a bulb is running vs a energy saver. Even though I know, the meter was working fine. I will tell Comed to come and check the meter, just for spite.