“How is an economist different from a battery?” I asked my wife.

She grunted in reply.

“The battery has a positive side. I wish I knew then what I know now,” I said.

“When was then?” asked my lovely bride, The Queen B.

“When I was younger.”

“Really? Have you ever been older and what did you know when you were younger?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“What a coincidence. That’s what you know now,” said my wife.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have invested in batteries,” I said with thoughts of luxury cars and a palatial mansion with indoor plumbing dancing in my head.

Why batteries, you ask. Let me present my case.

I was in a wilderness area. People were scarce. I was camping in a tent and tenting in a camp.

There was a couple with young children near me. Their tents were clicking, whirring, buzzing, beeping, and blinking. The good folks domiciled in those colorful tents employed cell phones, smart phones, even smarter phones, cameras, iPods, laptop computers, a GPS, PDAs, recording devices, X-Boxes, portable DVD players, recharging stations that ran on batteries, a camcorder to memorialize the trip and numb family members back home, wristwatches, an extra camera in case one of the first team cameras failed, and headphones that canceled outside noises. They were using headphones with the volume so high that the batteries in the iPods will one day be replaced with hearing aid batteries. It wouldn’t have surprised me if there had been a battery-powered toaster and a garage door opener in their tents.

There weren’t many plug-ins or lengthy electrical cords in the camp sharing a Zip Code with nowhere. Everything ran on batteries.

My computer was a stone tablet and a chisel. I had a flashlight with me. It was a storage unit for dead batteries. My tent neighbors had spotlights and headlamps powerful enough to freeze a herd of deer. Batteries powered their socks. They likely had one tent filled with nothing but batteries.

On another day, I was on a difficult mission into a local shopping mall. A mall is unfriendly territory for me. Its customer base isn’t based on the likes of me. I was just another hick in the mall. Why that hasn’t been the subject of a country song is beyond me. Maybe “A Man of Constant Sorrow” could be rewritten. I was there because I am equipped with superpowers. OK, it’s a superpower. My superpower is that I am sometimes able to get to the post office before noon to buy stamps and because of that, I am entrusted with minor shopping tasks. I am tall so everything I want in a store is on the lowest shelf. My wife is short, so everything she wants is on the top shelf. It makes some things easier when we shop together. I walked by a food court featuring state fair cuisine. I wasn’t there to get a new broom because our old one had overswept. I ran the gauntlet because I needed D, C, AA, AAA, 9-volt, 6-volt, and CR-V3 batteries, plus a battery for my wristwatch because I can’t wind it.

We need batteries for the GPS unit that we use to find more batteries. Every store sells batteries except Everything But Batteries Mart. We have gone wireless but are far from having gone batteryless. Without batteries, we become as shaky as Paris Hilton on Jeopardy.

I see men using battery-powered shavers as they motor down the road. They can’t be cited for inattentive driving because they are paying attention to their shaving.

There is much gnashing of teeth in a home that has a TV remote with a dead battery. When a new battery is found hiding in a drawer, there is a celebration that rivals the Mardi Gras. A new battery for a TV remote makes a man feel as proud and happy as Barney Fife did when Andy Griffith gave him a bullet for his pistol.

I reached down behind the cushions of the sofa. I do that on Mondays and Fridays. That’s where I get my weekly allowance. I felt around the odd bits of lint and cat fur until I found something. It wasn’t a coin. It was a battery. That’s what my life has become. I no longer have money. I have batteries.

Whenever I’m headed home and have that nagging feeling that I have forgotten something, I know what it is. I’d forgotten to wash behind my ears or to pick up batteries.

I know what I’m getting everyone for Christmas — batteries.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.