Those Blasted Curly Lightbulbs

I actually hope someone will set me straight on this. I hate energy-saving lightbulbs, and I was thrilled to find that the one over our staircase had finally burned out. My theory about them has been that they don't ever burn out. They are like that imaginary trip across the street where each step is half as long as the last, and so you never arrive. The bulbs simply burn more and more dimly with each passing year and never really get to the place where you can say it's burnt out and throw it away. Which is good for the environment, because, as far as I know, those bulbs are very toxic and have to be disposed of like nuclear waste, in a sealed bag, at a secret site in a city you don't live in. Am I wrong? I read about this as recently as a couple of years ago when we were getting Consumer Reports. Nevertheless, the upside of having one burn out is that you get to replace it with one with decent candlepower.

And then my personal handyman went to replace it, and it turns out to have been the fixture, not the bulb. So my theory is intact, and the thrill is gone.