You're David Sawooki!

The other day when I arrived home from work, Alexander greeted me downstairs with his arms crossed tightly across his chest and a stern look on his face.

"Dad," he said. "You left the closet light on upstairs this morning. It was on ALL day."

I thought back to that morning's rush to get him out the door and on time to school before heading off to work. Yes, it was very likely I'd forgotten to turn off the light to the walk-in closet in our bedroom.

"Sorry," I said. "I was in a hurry."

He shook his head, his arms still firmly folded and said. "That's no excuse. It's a big waste of electricity!"

"Okay, okay," I said, throwing my hands up in the air. "Cut me some slack, David Suzuki."

I was, of course, refering to the series of cute and funny Powerwise.ca commercials featuring Canada's leading science broadcaster and envrionmental activist, David Suzuki. I love the ones in which an average citizen is shocked to find David Suzuki in their home making it more energy efficient (like my favourite one in which Bob learns that "using less electricity means more beer!")

I've long admired David Suzuki, even had the pleasure of meeting him when he did a book signing at my bookstore many years back, and absolutely adore the humour in these ads -- it shows that you can be serious about an issue but use humour to get your message across.

Alexander, of course, didn't know what I was refering to and thought I was insulting him, so he responded quite quickly with.  "No, YOU'RE David Sawooki!"

If we were all a little more like David Sawooki and become a little more Powerwise, we'll save ourselves some decent money and help the clean and healthy environment be around for future generations to make cute statements like that.