*Batteries not included

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

We’re just a about three weeks away from Christmas 2022, so I hope you’re almost done checking off all the names on your shopping list. I also hope you’re having better luck getting everything you ordered online delivered. Some of my friends and family will be gettting printed off pictures and invoices in their stockings unless “Santa-zon” picks up the pace.

When you’re Christmas shopping, there are a lot of ancillary things you need to stock up on as well, like wrapping paper, bows, name tags, clear tape, maybe some of that fancy tissue paper that goes in the box with whatever you’re wrapping. Oh, and speaking of boxes, you might have to buy some boxes to. I’m not at all ashamed to say I hoard boxes from Christmas to Christmas, after all of the presents have been opened. I go around the room and collect all of the gift boxes, carefully fold them up and stuff them all into my “box of boxes” until next December rolls around. It has probably saved me a hundred bucks or so over the years.

But above all else, do not (and I can no stress this tip enough) forget the batteries. Especially if you have kids,

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there’s bound to be a number of gifts unde the old Christmas tree that need batteries, and Santa Claus’s name will be mud if he forgets the AAA’s that little Suzie needs to make her Princess Peaches Party Pony light up and sing (or whatever… I’m a little out of touch with the hot toy items these days, but I assure “Big Battery” is still keeping us from all having stuff you can just plug into the wall for a few hours ans it will be charged.

I speak from a place of experience, both as the giver and the receiverof gifts that were *batteries not included, only to find out that the batteries were not only not included, there were none in the house that were the right kind.

These days, a lot of stuff that’s electronic just has an adapter and you plug it in to charge it and plug it back in when you’ve played all the juice out of it, but there are still plenty of battery-dependent devices out there, and you not only need to know how many but also what size.

You don’t want Little Jimmy’s Tonka Tyke Tractorbot 3000 (again, my kids are several years removed from toy age) only to find out that you

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bought a four-pack of AA batteries but it needs AAA batteries (or C’s or those big old D’s or the wacky 9volts that we used to stick on our tongues for God knows what reason.

One year, when my boys were definitely in the toysfor- Christmas age range, they had both asked for walkie-talkies from Santa, and as my wife and I played elf on Christmas Eve night, we realized that there were no usable AAA batteries in the whole house.

Given the late hour, the only place I could find that was both open for business and stocked with AAA batteries was the Flash Market across town. A stroke of good fortune, but a stroke of bad business as they knew the value of the “convenience” part of convenient store, and a pack of 2 AAA batteries was a cool $5.99. And since I needed four per walkie-talkie, I swear to you I paid $25 (with taxes figured in) for eight AAA batteries, just so my kids would have batteries in their walkie-talkies for the 10 minutes they would play with them on Christmas morning before moving on to some other new gift from Santa.

I think even the cashier felt sorry for me… but then again, he was working over night on Christmas Eve, so maybe not. In any event, ever since the, I have dilligently remembered to stock up on batteries once the shopping is done for the season.