Duck and Cover

So there I was, minding my own business, winding 655 little skeins of yarn.  I've been doing it all week, and I think I'm getting pretty good at it.  Like ditch-digging, or sod-busting, skein-winding is an activity whose learning curve we may not fully appreciate until it's too late.  And by "too late", I mean that if you find yourself actually doing any of these things, it's clear that you have not planned your life properly.  But I was winding anyway, with the speed and confidence borne of practice.  And that's when I heard it:  POPSMASH!

I looked into the hallway whence came the noise:

What you are looking at (and it took me a full minute to figure it out, myself) is the remains of one of these:

They are builder-grade ($1.95 per 100) ceiling light fixtures.  They are everywhere in my house, and probably in yours, too.  Look up and see if I'm not right. 

And it EXPLODED. 

The bulbs inside are still intact, and happily lighting the hallway.  Just the glass shade simultaneously blew up.  And I'm picking shards of glass out of everything in a 10-foot radius, including the carpet, the coat closet, and if I'm not careful, my hands.

Now I have lived happily beneath my collection of builder-grade ceiling fixtures for upward of six years in this house.  Before that, I had similar ones in two other homes.  And at NO TIME did it ever occur to me that I should worry about them EXPLODING into a rain of glass shards.  I'm really happy to report that no Smallies or pets were harmed, but I can't help but wonder if we're all on borrowed time here.

And the bigger picture also makes me anxious:  I like to think I keep my mind open to the signs the universe is sending me.  I believe that information about what we are supposed to be doing and thinking in this life is all around us, in the form of positive and/or negative input resulting from our actions.  God/Nature/The Universe has subtle ways of letting us know when we are on (or off) the right track in our decisions.  So what, Gentle Readers, am I supposed to make of this weird-ass development?  Really?  Broken GLASS.  Raining down from the sky.  I'd have to be blind (and deaf, and shard-resistant) not to notice it as some kind of signal.  But of what?

A moment of reflection spent in relative safety under the dining room table produced the following possible interpretations:

1.    I'm not supposed to be winding yarn right now.  God wants me to investigate the many possibilities of track lighting, instead.

2.    I should be paying more attention to lights being left on in areas where people are not.  That's just good environmental stewardship, but apparently at my house, it's also self-preservation.

3.    My weird-filled week has reached its inevitable crescendo, and I can relax in the knowledge that things are bound to settle down now (Insert Lightning Strike Here).

Which do you think it is?  Or is there a larger message here that I've completely missed?  

If anybody needs me, I'll be under the dining room table.