I got a nightlight for our bathroom last week. The light switch is as far from the door as possible (because that’s convenient in a bathroom). It’s in the far corner, on the other side of the medicine cabinet, and it shares a wall plate with the outlet. It’s a rocker switch, so every time we reach blindly in the dark to turn on the light, we risk shoving our fingers in the socket. I figured I could solve the dark problem and the outlet problem by buying one of those nightlights that covers the unused socket. I found these cool-looking clear ones that glow in colors in the dark, and I got the red one because I read that red is less disruptive to your sleep than blue or green. I didn’t take into consideration that a red nightlight might disturb my sleep in other ways.
Now the bathroom glows red like a portal to hell.
Seriously, every time I get up in the middle of the night, and any time I notice the glow down the hallway as I’m drifting off to sleep, I’m half expecting demons to show up. I’m not sure blue would have been any better – then I’d imagine the not-friendly kind of alien. And if I’ve gotten green…I don’t know – maybe dark fairies?
I might be replacing the nightlight with baby-proofing outlet covers soon.