Nobody gives out fluorescent work lights as Christmas presents.  You know why?  Because nobody wants to receive fluorescent work lights as Christmas presents.  When we’re giving and receiving gifts, we like it to be something a little sexier or more whimsical than a simple tool like a work light.  Nevertheless, it’s stuff like fluorescent work lights that we end up keeping and using for decades, and stuff like a new cell phone or a new laptop that we end up using for two or three years and then replace.

This Christmas, I traveled four hours by car to visit my parents.  We had a grand old time, and we gave one another many fine gifts.  If my mother had purchased me a fluorescent work light for Christmas, I’m not going to say that I would have been so angry that I’d have kicked over the Christmas tree.  But I’d have been sort of confused, you know?  Who the hell needs a work light?

Well, after I’d loaded the car back up to head home, guess what—it wouldn’t start.  Turns out, you need to drive your car more than once in four days in freezing weather or the battery dies.  I sure would have liked to have a nice fluorescent work light as I was struggling to hold an LED flashlight in my teeth while I tried to connect jumper cables in 20-degree weather that night.  I didn’t get one for Christmas, though.  I got an iPod instead. 

It’s strange that we don’t give more useful gifts at Christmas.  Moral of the story?  Buy more work lights!