Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Musings... Take Them Batteries Out!

If I could go back in time and tell my young self one thing, just one thing in the world, it would be to take the damn batteries out of all your toys when you're done with them! That and buy some Apple stock. Netflix and Google wouldn't hurt either. And treat the redhead right.

Someone just spent an entire day sorting and cleaning out a big chunk of his old toys -- you'll see why soon. What a pain that was. Everything from Lego to G.I. Joes to metal cars to Gundam were thrown into plastic shopping bags. They probably weren't touched for over a decade sitting in cupboards and closets. Everything was intact, but they were still dusty. And I had to wash the ten years out of them.

Washing was a pain and I think I took a few casualties on the Lego front when I accidentally lifted the drain filter. Considering that they weren't attached to anything, the worst part was probably adding a few solid pieces of plastic to jam the sewage pipe. However, I still felt terrible over the loss.

And finally, I address the thing about batteries mentioned in the opening. The absolute worst part was playing the lottery on toys with batteries. I was a "good kid" in that I kept my toys well stocked with juice. However, when I got sick of those toys, I put them on a shelf and never touched them again.

We bought some pretty crappy batteries back in the day and surprise, they all leaked electrolyte. What a mess. A few years back, I picked out the hardened electrolyte from my Star Wars X-Wing and Snow Speeder. This time, I trashed things -- I was lucky in that there were no leaks in the things I actually cared about.

However, young me, please take the batteries out before throwing those toys in the corner so old you won't have to deal with those leaks! And definitely Apple and the redhead.

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