I didn’t know. I had no clue. All this time, I thought the idea of owning a tactical EDC flashlight to be patently absurd. Why would I ever need 1300+ lumens? Is 1300 lumens even a lot? I have no way to contextualize what 1300 lumens even means. Until today.
I take prescription meds for Parkinson’s and depression. The Parkinson’s meds can cause addictive/compulsive behavior. I don’t drink and sports gambling is illegal in Georgia, so I online shop too much. I recently changed depression meds, and now I don’t sleep. I’m up all night tinkering with my tiny keyboard or my tiny computer and eventually I see an ad or get a thought in my head that leads me to spending $100s of dollars at two in the morning. Usually I end up canceling my order or returning what I buy. But last week I went a little overboard with my online spending.
Tweeting about tactical flashlights makes the algorithm send me ads and affiliate link spam articles about tactical flashlights, and as it turns out, one flashlight company was having a pretty good sale. I got a flashlight, a charger (that can charge other USB devices), and a free tiny flashlight. The tiny flashlight sold the deal for me. Now I have a tiny flashlight on my keychain. It joins my tiny Hydro Flask, my tiny keyboard, and my tiny wireless trackball as the latest member of my tiny everyday carry.
But the tiny flashlight was just a bonus. The tactical flashlight changed my life. When I saw how it illuminates a dark room, I knew that I had discovered something wonderful. I had uncovered a beautiful new facet of the universe. Look at how bright this thing is.
The room is completely dark, but the flashlight beam is bright enough that I can read the spines of Volumes I-XX of the OED from across the room. This is what the discovery of fire must have felt like. I feel powerful. Indestructible. I want to start dressing like Oppenheimer. And if any of you think you can sneak into my house at the night and steal one of my weighted blankets, think again. The darkness cannot hide you from the tactical EDC flashlight. Unless I forget to charge it, because I guess the battery only lasts like seven minutes on the highest power. But during those seven minutes, I am the modern Prometheus.