There is a little knob in my house … no, there are a TON of them, and they never get used …
What is it?
Oh, come on, guess.
If you have kids, you already know!
It’s the LIGHT SWITCH! Dun dun!
There’s one (or two or three in some cases) in every room in our house. Yet somehow, my kids know how to flip them UP, but not flip them down.
Up?
Yes.
Down?
No.
This must be a difficult task, right? I mean, down is just so …. hard?
That can’t be it. My kids are smarter than that.
So what is it? Why is it that I can walk around my entire house flipping switches DOWN in every room and turning off lights, ceiling fans, or … the simple switch — the one on the TV … apparently neither it OR the remote works.
That must be it.
They don’t work.
Right?
Nope.
So it’s not difficult, they do work … but they don’t ever get used.
Perhaps it’s the location.
Nope, that can’t be it … the switch never moves.
Maybe there are gremlins. You know those same buggers that get in your clothes and sew them tighter? Maybe those things are going around and forcing those switches in place so we can burn unnecessary energy.
That it?
No.
I just can’t think of a reason except one …
PURE LAZINESS
You see, they don’t pay the massive electricity bill each month, so why should they care that their ceiling fan is running on high in the middle of a 100 degree day when no one is around to feel the breeze?
What do they care if a light was left on all night? The gremlins needed nightlight. Right?
Enh.
Wrong answer.
They have no concept of what their NOT turning off the x, y, z appliance does to the bottom line. It won’t ever have an affect until they pay the bill and I bet, once they do, I’ll hear:
“The switch is right there by the door and no one’s holding it on, so TURN IT OFF!”
Which are the exact words I use.
Regularly.
Like mother like daughter?
Oh yeah.
The time will come.
🙂
You see? I can’t make this up. THIS is the stuff of non-fiction and why no one in my fiction novels ever leaves a light on. 😉
How about you? How do you get your kids to turn OFF the lights and fans?
Share in the comments!
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I believe this is an epidemic among young people. It knows no age limit. I have not found a treatment, cure, or even a name for this common illness. Somehow it does tend to go away once the said child becomes one of the “productive adults who know have bills to pay” citizens. Please know that you are not alone. Many parents suffer from this. We must stay vigilant and sound like broken records.
However, there is a time when we may “pay back” their kindness… when we get to visit our said child and leave every light on in the house. Leave every refrigerator/ freezer door open. Leave every TV, DVD player, Wii, Playstation, XBox, and oven on. Leave all the doors that lead in and out of the house open, regardless of the weather. Leave the water running in the shower and the sink. We will let it be known that we did not forget all those times they graciously allowed us the opportunity to say, “Turn……..off”
Mel
Baahahhahaa! I cannot WAIT for the moment I can go ‘pay them back’ 🙂
Ah, see? If I can catch pretty fast that they’ve left something on after they’ve gone out, I call my kidlets back and make them turn it off themselves. Or if I walk past either of them sitting on the sofa watching Disney Channel (ARGH!), and head upstairs, to find the upper part of the house resembling Blackpool Illuminations (Google it), then I’ll bypass all those light switches, simply do what I went upstairs for, and then when I go back down send THEM up to switch off those lights they left on. That’s all you can do. Make them do what they should have done in the first place.
Oh yeah, and I do … something in me just wishes they’d do it the FIRST time! 🙂
I don’t have any kids so I can’t comment on that, but it’s not just limited to kids.LOL
My sister used to work for this guy as a nanny, taking care of his son. Well, he once said something to her about turning off lights … when she wasn’t the one that turned it on … then he started dating this girl who turned a light on in any room she walked into but didn’t bother turning them off. He complained about his girlfriend to my sister but never to his girlfriend who was the one turning all the lights on. My sister would end up turning out the lights when she arrived at his house.
Dude. Makes me wonder just how ‘young’ the girlfriend was. 😉