I found it highly amusing when my parents handed me a rather heavy bag of AA batteries when we went down to see them for Christmas. They had bought quite a few things for my daughter for Christmas, and most of them took at least two AA batteries. They said that they know how expensive batteries can be, and they thought that if they did not supply the batteries that she might not get to play with many of her new toys. They may have been on to something because had we been the ones to buy the batteries, many of her toys would still be in the boxes they came in.



I was astounded at the number of AA batteries that we had to buy for the few toys we got her this year. I tried to get her toys that did not require batteries, because I think the ones that do not require batteries are more fun for kids. We did end up getting her three things that take AA batteries, and one of them took seven of them. I could not believe it. We bought a package of batteries for all three toys, but my husband had to go back to the store at the last minute to get more. Seven batteries in one toy is just ridiculous if you ask me, and it's not like it did anything miraculous either.

Toys are not the only things in our home that eat through the AA batteries. My digital camera will take this size battery, but I gave up on that long ago. I would barely begin taking shots and the batteries would die. I even toyed with rechargeable AA batteries for my digital, but they weren't the greatest deal either. I finally went out and got one of the other recommended types of batteries for my digital camera. If I hadn't, I might have had to give up something just to pay for the batteries.

We also have a lot of remotes that take AA batteries. Though these do not run through batteries as quickly, they certainly demand their fair share. I think that if it were not for rechargeable AA batteries we might be broke by now. As things become more and more complicated, the need for batteries goes up. There has to be a way to stop this expense from becoming impossible to keep up with. There are AC adaptors for such things, but my remote isn't designed to use one. That would be silly anyway. I'm hoping they can come up with a way to make the batteries to last longer without jacking up the price too much.