What’s In Your Battery Drawer?

The power was out and the house was dark. I hoped my flashlight’s weak batteries would provide enough light to find my way to the battery drawer.

Flashlights work well until you need them. That’s why they’re called “dead battery storage devices.” And that’s why everyone has a battery drawer. Our disorganized drawer contains about a dozen batteries of various types. Some are still in their packs of two, four, eight or more. I also have a box of 48 AA batteries – and another box of 100 in a separate drawer. I’ll explain later.

There are way too many different batteries. Different types, shapes, sizes and voltages. We have the common D, C, AA, AAA and 9-volt batteries. Don’t get me started on their rechargeable equivalents or the merits of the annoying AAA battery.

Do common batteries come as singles anymore? What if I just need one battery? Like that time I found two in the drawer but I needed three. Why do they make devices that take three batteries? It’s a problem akin to the dilemma of 10-pack wieners and eight-pack wiener buns. There oughta be a law.

Then there are the odd-sized batteries such as the ones about the size of a Tootsie Roll or the flat ones that range in size from larger than a nickel to a tiny one for a watch I can’t open without injuring myself. There are so many different types of these that I can’t remember which is which.

Maybe you had a digital thermometer that broke and was discarded long ago. It took an odd battery type and you had to buy a two-pack the only time you changed its one battery. The remaining battery in that pack will never be used. You know that, right? Or are you looking for another thermometer just like it so you don’t waste a battery?

Maybe you’re scrounging for two batteries required in another device and you find a two-pack of that battery type which has been opened but, surprisingly, both batteries are there. It’s just that someone decided that a previously replaced battery was “only slightly used,” so it was saved.

The two AA batteries in a wireless microphone at our church needed replacing. I could find just one spare so I borrowed the battery from the sacristy’s wall clock until after the service. How many times at your house has a battery been borrowed from a device and not replaced?

I remember when D and C cell batteries were the ones we needed most for our flashlights and toys. But we also needed the much smaller AA batteries for our little race cars. They were called penlight batteries because they were designed for the little flashlights the size of a pen. Any of these batteries lasted about as long as it took to ride my bike to the store to buy more.

My first 9-volt battery experience was with a transistor AM radio. Listening to a staticky Twins game was bad enough with a fresh battery but it was maddening trying to catch the ninth inning as the battery died and the sound faded. I would test the battery by touching its posts to my tongue. A good battery gave a nice tingle to the metallic taste.

All the batteries we used back then were zinc-carbon. They didn’t last long and were expensive for a kid. But battery life improved greatly with alkaline batteries. The higher price for them was worth it. Batteries now are made from a number of different elements. Some can be thrown in the garbage and some should be recycled. But since I’m no battery expert, I’m never quite sure which to recycle and which to toss. Usually, all it says on batteries is “dispose of properly.”

What makes all this more disgusting is that the battery industry markets them in so many sizes and packages. A busy family might want a battery inventory system, maybe a shared app, so you’d all know when to order more of whatever batteries are low. And since we’ll forget to buy more, there should be an option to let the app also do the ordering.

You can buy an “as seen on TV” see-through double-sided battery organizer. It comes preloaded with 180 batteries of all common sizes that any homeowner is sure to need. It looks impressive until you realize it will run out as well. Maybe a future organizer could connect to the internet and place an order automatically. What’s more likely to happen is that the organizer will run low and any remaining batteries get dumped into the pile in the battery drawer.

For my flashlight with the weak batteries, I found two D cells in the drawer, each a different brand. I decided I should test them first. Nope, the battery tester’s own battery had died. And it took one of those flat ones that I didn’t have. So I just put the D cells in the flashlight and it worked. Until I need the flashlight next time.

Remember those 148 AA batteries I have? I have that many because we installed powered shades in a few rooms. The eight windows in our sunroom each take 12. That’s 96. The two other shades take a total of 36. What’s left is for everything else that takes AA batteries.

I better buy some more.