The bathroom has no windows.

So I have been struggling with how to save energy lighting it.

I'm not willing to go so far as trying to drop a deuce in the dark (Didn't Ronnie Milsap sing a song about that?) (And how do blind people or people in the dark know when they're done wiping?) but it seems a little silly to have to burn three lightbulbs (they all come on when you flip the switch) several times a day. That's a minimum of 120, and maybe up to 180, watts each time.

I *could* leave the door open and let the light from the windows on the sunporch illuminate me, but I'm just not one of those open-door poopers. Someone, somewhere, might be watching. And the last thing I need right now is a big-ass indecent-exposure production.

I tried a nightlight, but it barely put out enough light to FIND my way to the porcelain throne. And I tried candles, but I burned my fingers a couple of times, and in the summer, I don't want to create any more heat than I have to.

That's when I had the idea to dig out the old battery-powered fluorescent lantern. Nine watts.

So when the urge hits, like some eighteenth-century sharecropper headed toward the little house with the moon cutout on the door, I grab my lantern.

So far, my mother hasn't asked what I'm doing. If she does, I'll tell her I have to watch for rattlesnakes.