Christmas lights, an update

I know that you all think I'm horribly paranoid, and that all this stuff about Christmas lights not working is some sort of wild imagination going on in my head.

So it is with victorious smugness that I inform you of the events that transpired yesterday as we took down our Christmas decorations, including the lights on that frustration-inducing tree.

Once again, I remind you that all lights were fully working, brightly lit as we took the ornaments off the tree. When it came time to remove our multi-colored festive orbs of holiday cheer, we of course unplugged them before beginning their serpentine removal. And before I carefully wound them up and rubber-banded them together for storage, I plugged in the first set we removed.

Guess what? They didn't work.

Shocking, I know.

Yes, they had worked just a few short minutes ago, but now that they were off the tree and ready to go into storage, bupkus.

I couldn't believe it, honestly. But, not one to give up easily, we began checking the tightness of each bulb while we had it plugged in. And, voila! We found one that was a little loose and it made the whole strand work again.

So, our thought was that during the removal from the tree, a bulb or two might get dislodged from its electrical homestead. If we plug it in and the strand does not work, we simply need to go through the strand checking each bulb.

Out of the other 5 strands, one of them worked without us doing any maintenance check. Three strands had no working lights, and one of them had half its lights lit up.

The one with half a strand working had another loose bulb that we found, so it went back to full working order. With the first one I messed with, the one that came off in functioning and the one that at first only half worked, we now had three working strands of lights. 300 lights ready for next year.

The other 300 lights would not come back on. We checked every stinkin' bulb, and nothing made those strands light up again. What pernicious thing occurred between their glorious brightness on the tree and their stubborn deadness off the tree?

I've no explanation, save the one I've given before: it's a plot by the Chinese conglomerate who makes these silly lights. They design them to fail so we'll have to buy more.

Fortunately I'm on to their wily, scheming ways and I checked those lights, so I knew the skinny. I promptly went out and bought 700 lights (marked down 75% at the post-Christmas sale) for a whopping price of $4.50 total (yes friends, you read that correctly. I put it to the man and did it for next to nothing!), and I'm now fully prepared for next year's debacle when we prepare to festoon our beloved fake fir over Thanksgiving weekend.

And best of all, my wild-eyed theories don't look quite so far-fetched.

Now, we'll see what happens to those 700 lights while they wait in storage for next year.

I'm pessimistic, to say the least.