Glass Pains

This is what I wrote yesterday before I collapsed from fatigue
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Theme for Monday: Broken glass

I woke up this morning to the news that my daughter had walked through a glass door. Don't worry! It was a small door on our secondhand entertainment center and it didn't even hurt her, but the glass shattered like only glass can. I come downstairs to help my wife clean up. While I'm at it, I decide to help her out by replacing the fluorescent tubes that burned out in the basement. I brought out the burned out pair and placed them next to the door to be carried out to the trash. You know, that was a bonehead move. Why couldn't I have simply removed it to the garage or the trash can?

As it was, Karen bumped it while she was trying to clean up the glass and POW! it broke falling into the laundry room. The good news is that it didn't break all of them and since we already had the cleaning tools out, it was just more glass... thinner, in a different area, and possibly contaminated with lead and mercury, but it was just more glass.

It's kind of funny when you look on environmental sites and they have so many steps to cleaning up a florescent bulb, something like "If drapes or carpet have come in contact and become contaminated, arrange for disposal with an authorized hazardous materials handler..." In other words, don't just throw them away. Remember when we could play in the street, start small fires with magnifying glasses and actually throw lawn darts as a fun summer evening game?

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Added today:

So we ventilated the room, swept and vacuumed until we didn't hear that "popcorn" sound from the vacuum brush any more. Now we wear socks or shoes for a while.

I just heard my son call out, "Glass shard!"

He found one, but not with his feet. Thank God for that.

The most frustrating part about this was that for years--years!--I had the thought to simply remove those doors before something like that ever happened. The only thing they really served for was to keep out dust. I can live with dust, especially if it means not cleaning up glass and not taking a trip to the emergency room. Why I didn't remove the glass in the first place was probably because it looked better with the glass in place. I hope this is the only time I ever make the mistake of choosing class and appearance over my children's safety. As it is, I'm very grateful God protected my daughter.

I'll definitely know what to look for to hold our components when we buy a 50 inch widescreen TV ...in 2016.