Awhile back, Christmas Day 2009 to be exact, our family experienced a morning full of the normal excitement that goes along with opening Christmas gifts. Everything was going smoothly until my son opened his “big” present – the one his dad and I couldn’t wait for him to see because it was going to be the BEST PRESENT we’d ever given to him in his life…the Star Wars Interactive R2D2. My son opened R2D2 and the whole family went wild – we couldn’t wait to play with him!
R2D2 was supposed to be able to do all sorts of cool things like make sounds, move around the house and even respond to voice commands. But not our R2D2. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. R2D2 wasn’t moving. R2D2 wasn’t beeping his signature beeps. In fact, he wasn’t doing much of anything. Was he broken already?
My husband, the genius, figured out that no, R2D2 wasn’t broken…he just didn’t come with batteries. ARG! (Sidenote: R2D2 was a fairly expensive toy, OF COURSE we assumed batteries would come with him, wouldn’t you?) So we frantically found the instruction booklet to see what kind of batteries R2D2 needed: 4 AAs. No problem – I stockpile those! And…R2D2 also required 4 D batteries. Oh crap! Who has extra D sized batteries sitting around the house? Those are the huge batteries that don’t fit into much of anything anymore.
So, panic broke out as we unscrewed any and all gadgets and toys we could find that looked like they might possibly contain a D battery or two. About a half hour into our battery scavenger hunt, we had finally scraped together the four D batteries. Whew. Christmas morning saved. The happy sounds of children commanding a beeping R2D2 to “Go on Patrol,” filled the house.
The only thing that could have made the morning more perfect after that would have been rechargeable batteries and charger as a stocking stuffer!
