This is the way it is. That is, this is the way it really is. I know what you imagine it is working where I do, but let me paint you a picture of me today. Here I am, hunched over a light bulb wrapped in a towel, whacking the thing with a hammer trying to bust it. Not doing so, trying. It's harder than you think if you want large pieces- the hammer kept bouncing off.

Now, why was I doing this? This was no ordinary light bulb, but a special red one. The red was dark enough that it oculd be used in a darkroom. Upon shattering, it turned out that the bulb was not colored that red, but had a thin plastic layer upon it (a gel) which gave it it's magical color. Anyway, that plastic had to be swept off to the spectrofluorometer to be analysed by fourier analysis to determine the exact wavelength that the color absorbed. This was done so that we would know what color gels we later wanted to order the next time we do.

All this ran through my head as my paws scrabbled with the hammer, brigning it down repeatedly on a lightbulb, thinking "This is the way it is. This is the way it really is."