Batteries -- finally!

Remember all those toy commercials on TV when you were a kid? I don't exactly, but what I remember they all seemed to have in common was a hyper announcer at the end talking about how all those cool toys were actually sold separately, and that the batteries weren't included.

Where was the fun in that?! If I was gonna own something to play with, I wanted all the pieces, and I definitely wanted the batteries.

It's like that toy car set I had -- Hot Wheels "Sizzlers", oh yeah. They were like regular Hot Wheels, except they had a little socket on the side that allowed you to plug in a wire (that looked like a gas hose) from a large power supply (that looked like a gas pump). You pressed the top of the "pump" for a while, and the little car charged up... you'd then put it on the Hot Wheels track and it'd race around by itself for a while until the juice ran out.

The only problem was that once the batteries in the "Juice Machine" died, the cars didn't run anymore. The cars didn't even roll like regular Hot Wheels, since they had these little motors in them. And the thing took like 6 D cells to work, so you can imagine how often my Dad wanted to replenish the batteries!

(Now, lest you think my Dad was some meanie who wouldn't let his little nipper have any fun, I would remind you that:

1. I did get the batteries in the first place. Yay, Dad!
2. I wouldn't be happy buying bulk packs of D cells for my kids' toys either!)

So, does "Batteries not Included" remind you at all of Mats Sundin's delay in playing for the Canucks?

Sundin is like the toy that you really, really wanted for Christmas. All the fan and media noise about whether he was coming to Vancouver, and the answering equivocation from Sundin himself, was like all those times as a kid when you'd ask your parents, "Can I have (toy of the month)?" and they'd only reply, "We'll see." Argh, the uncertainty!

When Mats announced his signing with the Canucks, though, that was opening your present on Christmas Day and seeing you'd gotten exactly what you'd been bugging Mom and Dad for, for weeks and weeks. The shiny new toy! Yes!

The delay since the signing, though, has been like what followed after reading "6 D cell batteries required" on the toy box. Six D cell batteries? Who has that many of them just lying around the house? "Sorry, son, we don't have that many batteries." The wait would then follow where daily you'd take the toy out of the box, look at it, maybe read the instructions (again), and wonder if today would be the day when Dad would be carrying three twin packs of D cells with him when he got home. Waiting for the Canucks and Sundin these last few weeks has been like having the toy but not being able to play with it.

However: tomorrow night, hopefully, is the night when Dad brings home the batteries and we finally get to see what the toy can really do.

Which toy will Mats be most like? The toy that worked great and was so fun for two days, and then broke, never to work again? Will it be the toy that looked so cool in the ads, but just like those comic book "Sea Monkeys", in real life didn't bear any resemblance to the pictures? Maybe the X-ray glasses, that didn't really work, but just messed up your eyes?

Or maybe, just maybe, Mats Sundin will be like the toy that you remember from your childhood, the one that seems only to get shinier, faster, bigger, cooler and more exciting every time you remember it and with every year that passes by. You know, the one that included the realistic Stanley Cup trophy in the box.

Only one way to tell.

Time to put in the batteries.