By JANE LOTTER

I think before we get to The Crux of This Month's Column, a word is in order about those new black shopping carts at the Northgate QFC. (If ever you were deluded into thinking this was a column of substance, I trust this will snap you out of it. Other columns offer political commentary, investment advice, and relationship guidance. I offer shopping carts.)

So, have you seen these new shopping carts? They are forbiddingly, menacingly black. And what I want to know is: Why?

I mean, is the management of QFC expecting Darth Vader to drop in and stock up on canned goods? Or are we all so bereft over the loss of Boeing that we must now drape our shopping carts in mourning?

Myself, I like the traditional steel carts, but if we must have a color, I'd prefer red. A bright, sporty-looking red that would inspire the more playful among us to sprint through the aisles, making a noise like a fire engine as we go.

OK, it's time for The Crux of This Month's Column: This month's column is all about saving energy. Specifically, this month's column is about those FREE conservation kits recently mailed out by Seattle City Light. Mine arrived last month and, other than a parking ticket, it is the only FREE gift I have ever received from the City of Seattle.

You may be wondering why I keep writing the word FREE all in caps, so I will tell you: I am simply following Seattle City Light's own exuberance with regard to the word FREE. For example, prior to getting my conservation kit, I received a letter from City Light trumpeting the news that, "...we have reserved a FREE conservation kit for you! It contains two FREE compact fluorescent light bulbs and a FREE bathroom faucet aerator."

See what I mean?

So, anyway, let me take you back in time to relive that moment when, like thousands of other Seattleites, I received my FREE conservation kit...

I rip it open. The faucet aerator and other stuff are mildly interesting, but what really intrigues me are the two energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs. I have never owned a compact fluorescent and I'm dying to see if they're as wonderful as City Light wants us to believe. "Fits anywhere a standard bulb will fit," promises the perky copy on the box.

I eagerly remove one of the CF bulbs from its box and attempt to install it in a living room lamp. It doesn't fit. I attempt to put it in several other lamps around the house. It doesn't fit.

By this time the bloom is off the rose, and I'm taking a good long look at the box the thing came in. On the box there is an illustration of a "standard incandescent" - in other words, a light bulb. It is a classic, almost elegant, shape. It is the shape of a bright idea over a cartoon character's head, or the Electric Company logo in a game of Monopoly.

Next to that illustration is an illustration of a compact fluorescent. Twisted and homely, it is neither classic nor elegant. It is the shape of a light bulb on drugs. It is the Quasimodo of light bulbs.

I find that I am no longer fascinated by my new compact fluorescent. In fact, I hate it. It is frustrating and it is ugly, and I want to smash it (not, I realize, an energy-saving thought, but there you are).

However, to my horror I learn that I dare not smash it because, according to the "Compact Fluorescent Bulb Fact Sheet" that came with my conservation kit, CF bulbs "contain trace amounts of mercury that can be released if the bulb is broken when thrown away. Please bring burned-out bulbs to Seattle's Household Hazardous waste sites for free disposal." (I think they mean FREE disposal.)

AAAAGGHH! Hazardous waste! The City of Seattle has sent me a FREE conservation kit and FREE hazardous waste! Moms and dads, whatever you do, don't let your little ones make papier-mache maracas out of these light bulbs!

Again, I examine the box the bulb came in. It says nothing whatsoever about mercury content. The only clue is that sinister phrase, "Made in China." The box goes on to insist that my 15-watt compact fluorescent exactly equals a 60-watt incandescent - although the "Fact Sheet" confesses that a 15-watt compact fluorescent equals a 40-60 watt incandescent.

The box, I have come to believe, is the biggest fibber since Richard M. Nixon.

In any case, I finally find a home for my compact fluorescent; it fits snugly in the porch light, casting a mercurial, greenish-tinged glow that will work nicely come Halloween. I have not yet found a suitable spot for my second energy-saving compact fluorescent (there were two of them in the kit, remember?). However, hope springs infernal.

I have learned the painful lesson that there is absolutely nothing compact about a compact fluorescent. Indeed, as you wander down the Light Bulb Aisle of Life (pushing a black shopping cart), a compact fluorescent light bulb is the least compact item you will encounter. That's because it not only takes up a lot of room in your lamp, it takes up way too much room in your head. (