People make fun of me for wanting/having night lights.

“Only children are afraid of the dark,” they say.

UNTRUE.

See, there’s something about the dark that has always bothered me, and will always bother me, more than the monsters under my bed or the strange man hiding in my closet (we’re friends now, it’s all good), and that is the fact that in the dark, you cannot see.

Let me elaborate.

Night Lights Lead to Fewer Injuries

The first and foremost reason why you should have a night light, is that the dark is f***ing dark. Yeah, I know I’m restating commonly known facts at this point, but think of all those times you’ve stubbed your toe in the dark; the times you’ve stepped on something squishy and panicked, not knowing what the squishy was; the times you just really had to pee but couldn’t find the toilet without the blinding light of Jesus scorching your pupils.

This is why you should listen to that gut instinct of yours that tells you a night light would solve all of your problems, because it will. At least, the ones you have at night.

More important than the ability to avoid a stubbed toe (or god forbid broken one), a squishy freak out, or a blinding piss in the dark, is the feeling of safety and trust in your own living space. No longer do you have to zombie shuffle into your bedroom, or pray that your bladder can make it to morning without any spritzing. Instead, you have the comfort of seeing some outlines and some lumps on the floor, and you no longer have to feel your way to the toilet water.

But before we get carried away with some reasonable reasoning about the reason you need a night light, lets also consider the the other reason why adults seriously need to discover the magic of a night light.

It Keeps the Monsters Away

We all know where I’m going with this. If you have a nice subtle night light that’ll give you a directional advantage, you can hop under the covers that much faster, and the monsters won’t get you. That split second of time a night light saves you could be the difference between life and death, because remember: if you have to zombie shuffle, the zombie behind you suddenly has an advantage.

Monsters are scared of light to begin with, so it’s best to place your night light as close to your bed as possible. After that, the only way to ensure your safety is to get under the covers and pull those damn covers straight up to your eyes.

Also, that guy in your closet can only come out when it’s pitch black. So yeah, it would make more sense to lure him out and hit him with a shovel, but as long as you have night lights, you should be good. Just make sure to also buy some backup generators for when your power goes out, because I can imagine sitting in the closet for weeks on end can’t make a guy too friendly.

Blanket Forts

Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t think about it.

So normally we would do such things with flash lights, but I think night lights make things 10x more fun. Mostly because you don’t have to actively hold the flashlight, and you can just kind of exist and hang out around the night light. There’s a reason outlets are usually closer to the floor, and that’s because of blanket forts.

Kids build blanket forts to tell ghost stories and create a secret hideout that their parents and the rest of the world can’t enter, but adults have a few more options.

There’s something to be said about a new space, and you can fool your mind by creating a blanket fort. It cuts off your normal sense of what’s supposed to go where, and suddenly you live in a smaller world of floor space, sheets, comfort, and crawling. Sure, your world is suddenly a lot more constricted, but it functions as a safe space where all of the normal thoughts and annoyances of your normal day suddenly aren’t visible. That blanket fort puts a fort around the troubles of your day.

And I already know you’re thinking it – as an adult you’re allowed to do the dirty in a blanket fort, because who’s going to tell you off?

Peace of Mind

The entire reason I decided to try to push night lights on the rest of the world is for this simple one: it gives you peace of mind.

I bought three night lights and dispersed them through the rooms of my apartment – one for the living room, one for the bedroom, and one in the bathroom. Honestly, I really only wanted one for the bathroom because it’s not a goddamn please touch museum. It was enough to put a dim light over everything, and now I don’t have to turn on the light when I pee at night. Double relief!

But since the only night lights I could get for a reasonable price off amazon happened to come in a four pack, I decided to spread them out a little bit. And I’ve never been happier.

I’m super anal about leaving lights on, but since my pooch died (still miss you nugget), I no longer have that extra security blanket of a constant guard dog. Suddenly there were bumps in the night, and strange noises I could find no reason for. So I kept my kitchen light on while I slept, just enough to see my furniture in the living room, but not enough to keep me awake in my bedroom.

But now, with the night lights I scattered through my apartment, I can come home from happy hour and still see my apartment before zombie-ing the few feet to my light switch. During the night, I can pee freely and rest knowing that if someone is breaking into my apartment, I can see both the book I’ll throw as a distraction and the lamp I will hit them with. If I’m close enough, I can probably also see my psychiatrist’s phone number.

Night Lights are Awesome

The bottom line is that night lights are awesome. They save you from monsters, intruders, self-inflicted bruises, and touch-testing your toilet water. If you are like me and hate the necessary zombie-ing to get from door to light switch or bed to bathroom, a night light might just become your best friend.