Burning Bulbs

I wake up one April morning at 1:30 am, to go to my overnight job, and two of the 5 lights in the apartment had been left on all night.

She would do this from time to time when she; came home, turned on entryway light, went into her room, shutting the door behind her, and eventually went to bed without bothering to walk the 15 feet to turn it off...
She would also do this with the hall light by the bathroom and if she at any point in the evening used the kitchen, that light would be on too. The dining room and living room lights never get used by her since she would lock herself in her room anytime she was in the apartment since she was so busy hating me for some unknown reason.

On this particular day, she had left the kitchen and entryway lights on (as pictured). 

I had decided that I was no longer going to tip-toe around her in an attempt to salvage some kind of civil relationship since there's no reason to be nice to someone who hates me for no reason. Yeah it was awesome. Every time I attempted to patch up whatever I didn't-know-I-did-wrong, a couple of weeks would go by until she started giving me the silent treatment for, again, no reason. I'm sorry if you're not 100% happy with you're life, that's no reason to make our living situation so uncomfortable. Anyway, so when I got to work I updated my Facebook status:

Yep, went all the way back to April in on my wall to take a screen shot of this.

 This is a quote of one of my favorite comedian's, Greg Behrendt, in which he was making fun of himself for forgetting to turn off lights but then defending himself so he doesn't feel dumb about it. Every-time I wake up to a fully illuminated apartment this joke runs through my head and at least the comedy of that makes me feel less annoyed but not actually better. Due to this being the nth time that I was getting the silent treatment for nothing from her, I got fed up and needed to just get it out. Hence the status update.

I felt that this was safe way to express my frustration that would not cause any more tension. I didn't call her out to her face, or write it on the dry erase board (every time I asked her do to something that way she freaked out as if I had just screamed it in her face).

But I did it on Facebook... where she saw it... And I knew it was a possibility but I had chosen not to care... And I guess she didn't appreciate it. Even though I wasn't really calling her out.

By the way, I also loved how she would complain all the time about not having money but then regularly adds hours of lighting to our electric bill. No, it's not making our bill crazy high or anything,  I just don't understand how is the concept of not spending money she doesn't have to such a foreign idea to her... when she works in finance!!!! I've mentioned this before. Not to mention the complete lack of being green which is the actual reason it bothered me. I realize now that I failed to mention that before so I just sound like I'm ranting because I hate illuminated rooms.

So yes she saw it, and yes she overreacted and yes she decided to respond. And she did it just as passive aggressively. Her super-mature response to my calling her out on an immature bad habit was: Da ta da!: To turn on every light in our apartment before leaving for work which I would come home to.

AHHHH! WHY??!??

Awesome. I decided then that if she ever pulled something like that again I'm taking the light bulbs. Or maybe replacing them with a dimmer wattage. Cause she would probably claim that its unsafe to not be able to turn lights on. I still loved the idea and she never did that again but since she still left between one and three on a lot of nights I decided to execute my plan half-way. I left all the fixtures that had dome-y things over the bulbs, and removed one of the two they hold. In one of them I replaced the working bulb with a burned out one. I knew she would never replace it because she seemed to feel that apartment maintenance wasn't something she was responsible for.

I would say that I had my vengeance. I had to put up with her leaving lights on all the time and she lost hall light privileges.