Word — Battery

Batteries are magical objects that give life to machines. That’s not what I would accept as a definition. I knew there was a chemical inside them providing the power. And that chemical would run out of it over time. I knew it tasted salty so had something to do with salts. I would press a dead one between my teeth to push the chemical together by compressing the battery, and voila! the remote works again. Thought of myself as a smart-ass doing that. Maybe I am. I remember a red toy jeep which I loved. It was a remote-controlled one. I don’t know what happened to it. Maybe I think I used it a lot and then it broke. I used to keep it brand new. Not wasting away batteries. But then I used to get greedy sometimes and play with it longer than usual. I was a frugal kid. I think the remote broke. And then I mined the motor out of it. Used it in science projects. My dad showed me how to use a battery with a motor to make a fan. And that was the start of all of my science expeditions in life. A lot of my career was framed by that single moment, that evening. A small toy car motor running on a battery attached to its two terminals. From the same wires, I got from the car. The car was heavy. It made vibrations you could feel in the remote in your hand. The remote was connected to the toy car through a long wire. I think the wireless ones were not out there yet. It’s funny thinking how technology has evolved since my childhood. They have cars which run by themselves now. Forget about the remote control. It’s interesting to know that things holding much energy are mostly neutral to our senses. They don’t make any noises on their own, don’t smell anything, and feel solid. Batteries, bullets, bombs. We call the pencil cells we put in our remotes, “batteries” at my place. Weird. But most countries have their own words to do with the English language. I think I have seen a video about this somewhere.