Ironically, shoving a lightbulb into your gob isn’t the brightest idea, but for one 22-year-old man, doing so landed him in the emergency room (ER) of his local hospital to get it out.
The incident was shared on the popular Reddit forum ‘Am I The A**hole’, which sees users ask others for their judgement on whether they stepped out of line in a particular situation.
In the post, the man’s cousin, a 19-year-old woman, writes: “So I and my cousin [sic] were hanging out last Friday. We were just chatting away while eating some nachos.
“I bring up how you can fit a lightbulb in your mouth, but you can’t take it out. He just says ‘huh’ and we continue talking.”
According to a video from the media outlet Bright Side, the issue occurs when the jaw clenches and muscles tighten up around the lightbulb. The realisation that the individual can’t remove the bulb only makes things worse, as fear paralyses the muscles.
Add to that the fact that the bulb is obviously made of glass, which risks damaging the inside of the person’s mouth, and the action becomes particularly dangerous.
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Obviously, do not try this at home.
Unfortunately, though, the young man tried it out, and it went exactly as you would expect it go.
“I guess he didn’t believe me because he tried it Tuesday night. From what I could gather from his story, he started yelling and his mother … came upstairs to check on him. When she saw that there wasn’t a way to get it out, she took him to the ER. I’m not sure how, but they removed it without hurting him.
“He called me up yesterday, and he was p***ed. He said if I didn’t say anything, then he wouldn’t have tried it. I thought that was total BS and started arguing back that he made a stupid decision and that wasn’t on me,” the female user explained.
She went on to add the man’s mother – her aunt – believed that while it was her son’s decision, the cousin “still opened the door for it to happen”.
“She compared it to someone leaving a drug on the counter, and how it’s both the person who laid the drug down and the person who used it. The analogy made sense, and I feel really guilty now. However, I’m still torn on whether I’m the a**hole or not,” she continued.
Fortunately, Reddit later concluded that she was “not the a**hole” (often shortened to NTA) in this instance, with many commenting to support the poster.
One popular comment reads: “NTA. Your cousin is 22 not two and needs to take responsibility for his actions. I’m reading this right now, does that mean I can blame you if I want to stick a lightbulb in my mouth? Your cousin needs to grow up.”
“NTA … You didn’t force him to do the stupid thing, you just mentioned a cool fact. If you had neglected to mention an inability to get it back out you would’ve been, but as you didn’t, this is all him,” said another.
A third said, rather bluntly: “NTA. It’s very surprising your cousin has survived this long.”
We can only hope that the ridiculous experience was enlightening for the 22-year-old.
