A Household Word: The Simple Life This Summer


By Carol Band


We just got another whopping electric bill. Turns out, even with Daylight Savings Time, we're not saving enough. Maybe it's because long after the darkness of December, my family continues to celebrate the Festival of Lights. I'm not talking about eight tiny candles. I'm talking about a 24-hour, 365-days-a-year, megawatt extravaganza. My kids never turn off anything. Walk into the den and Paula Deen is whipping up pralines for nobody. Nocturnal fish swim on our computer screens all through the night and the overhead lights in the kitchen are on even when the sunshine streams through the windows.

"It looks cozy," my son Lewis says.

"It looks like a $200 electric bill," my husband Harris complains, as he goes through the house, turning off computers, unplugging iPods from their chargers and flipping off lights. The kids call him "The Dark Lord."

"We've got to find a way to use less electricity," he says, unscrewing the light bulb in the fridge.

We huddle around a candle in the dark kitchen.

"Geez, Dad," Lewis says. "Do you want us to become Amish or something?"

"Yes," Harris replies. "Amish would be good. Then, maybe, the electric bill would be manageable."

"There wouldn't even be an electric bill," our oldest son Nathan points out. "We'd be off the grid."

While I know it's not all quilting bees and buggy rides, I also know that the Amish are hard-working, law-abiding, God-fearing people who are able to eat enormous meals of scrapple, funnel cakes and fritters, without joining the 35 percent of Americans who are officially obese. That alone is enough to convert me.

My daughter Perry, who is away at college, is going to take a bit more convincing. Since this was my husband's idea, I made him write the letter informing her of the changes she would encounter when she came home at the end of the semester.

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