Well, I am not really sure how to start this. It is kind of hilarious actually, I burned my finger in my fridge. Yes, I really did and I know, refrigerators are supposed to be cold, at least from inside, somehow, a little, sometimes more. Let’s agree on: it’s cold inside. And so is mine, cold inside. And it has a lamp, which has indisputable advantages. This light makes is easy to find stuff in there. This lamp makes it possible that you recognize the aged cheese hidden in the back before it grows feet and starts to eat the other inhabitants of your fridge. So no doubt, light in your refrigerator is one of the smarter invention of mankind, besides the wheel, or toilet paper.

And now the magic part comes, the refrigerator is able to switch this light on and off, tailored to your needs. Awesome, isn’t it? The light switches off when the fridge is closed. This is so amazing. But now you might ask, how do you know that? How do you know if the light is off then? You can’t check since checking involves to open the door. And then the fridge thinks you are hungry and starts to illuminate the over-aged cheese. Tricky question. And my fridge is too small that I would fit inside to check from there behind the closed door. One of the unresolved questions of humankind. This is comparable with Schroedinger’s cat, Schroedinger’s cheese so to speak. So after a while the cheese is simultaneously illuminated and in the dark. Quantum mechanics rocks. And I think it’s independent if the cheese is furry already or not, well, up to a certain point. Once the cheese became his own ecosystem it might develop firefly capabilities. Who knows? But this would ruin the quantum mechanics experiment.

So let’s concentrate on the part we can prove. Door open equals light on. Good. But I have to tell you, this is not principle or law of nature, since my fridge stopped doing so. Really, he mutinied, refused to serve and obey. Shame on him. But to give him some credits, he still tried to cool down my groceries. He just refused to show them to me. So let’s call it partial mutiny.

But the culprit was found easily. It was the light bulb. The evil little light emitting flask. This little guy died a shiny dead and gave up, without warning or announcement. Well, she served for many years and deserved some rest to be honest. So I expressed my condolences and performed a light bulb funeral. Poor little guy. But no time for grief and mourning, I headed for the hardware store to get a replacement lamp. And there have been several types and I wouldn’t be me if I wouldn’t think: “Let there be light!” and I went for the 25W version. Awesome, the sun will rise in my fridge. And it did actually. It was never brighter in my fridge, awesome.

After some time I realized that the food next to the lamp was somehow impacted. It wasn’t cold and grew fur and feet faster. Interesting experiment. But the solution was easy, just don’t place anything near that lamp and life is good again. And it was, until this burning smell distributed within the fridge and within the food. Took me some time to figure out what’s going on. But finally the light bulb confessed the crime. It became little hot, well hotter, to be precise hot enough to melt parts of the plastic cover around the light bulb. The plastic started to bend around the light bulb, which increased the effect even more. So what to do? Yes, let’s remove the bulb. But ouch, very hot and unfortunately the molten plastic prevented the removal of the bulb. But the longer I tried, the hotter the system became. Okay, that’s manageable I thought. This device is a fridge, so give him some time to cool down the light bulb. And so I did. But I have to confess, I didn’t wait long enough and the bulb jumped back to operating temperature within seconds. And that has been the moment I burned my fingers in my refrigerator. It would be embarrassing if it wouldn’t be funny 😉

But as a natural scientist I found a solution and unplugged the fridge. Smart move, but I burned another time since I wasn’t patient and didn’t wait long enough, again. But hey that’s life. Sometime you win, sometime you learn. And here I won (I was able to beat the bulb) and I learned, several times (25W might be too much for a little fridge and patience avoids ouch). I am proud of myself 😉