The other day I was making a grocery list and Jack said, “Get me an E battery at the store, would you?”
And I said, “What the hell is an E battery?”
And he said, “You know, the square ones.”
“You mean a 9-volt?”
He looked at me with pity.
Step into my manly, oversized shoes for a moment, if you will: You’ve bought AAA’s, AA’s, A’s B’s, C’s, and D’s, but never in your grizzled existence have you dreamed of purchasing a so-called “E” battery.
So I went to the store and I bought him a 9-volt — which is what he wanted — and that was the end of it. Almost.
Eventually I got around to doing what any vengeful person would do when threatened by yet another of her husband’s groundbreaking neologisms: after forgetting about it for a month I remembered to do a Google Image Search.
No one calls them E batteries. NO ONE!
Until now, that is.
hah – you were right! (almost makes it worth it, doesn’t it?)
Being Right on the internet is just so deeply satisfying, isn’t it? Sorry Jack – had never heard of an E battery either.
You’re right, he’s wrong. Sorry.
oh, i’m shutting up. i’m not reliving the pastrami incident.
Remember those 9-volt tickets at Disneyland?
Yay! Comments are back up. Wait. What was I going to say again? Grrrrrr
It is precisely because my husband is such an arrogant b-tard (sorry, honey, I still love you) that moments like you describe are so sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. They keep me going for months at a time.
I love proving my husband wrong via Google. It is one of the most satisfying parts of marriage.
Suck it, Jack!
Maybe he was confusing batteries with cup size.
hahaha YEAH! E for Exactly not what it is called!
You all better be making these comments in all love for Jack.
bite meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Oh, I get it — with all the E’s. Good one, honey.
That’ll teach him.
Or not.
But it would make so much sense…
Is that some kind of metric vs. the US thing?
9-volt dude.
nine volt
Sorry to go against the grain here but all this fuss over the fact that they’re most certainly not called E size batteries has made the term stick in my head.
They’ll always be E-batteries for me now. Thanks for the term, Jack!
I love that – I win arguments with Google all the time.
I love proving my husband wrong – it’s just one of those little wifely things that makes marriage so satisfying.
Ha! That’s superb. I get the ‘pity’ look quite frequently, so I feel your joy.
I wouldn’t have known what an E-battery was either.
I’m on your side on this one, Eden.
In what in a few weeks will be 41 years on this earth, I have never, ever, ever, EVER heard a 9-volt battery called an E battery. Ever.
Oh you mean the square one? They still make crap that uses those?
I used the same technique to disprove my husband’s assertion that ibuprofen, despite what it says on the bottle, is not a fever reducer. Even after being introduced to multiple medical websites and scholarly research showing ibuprofen is just as effective at reducing a fever as acetaminophen, he still doesn’t believe it. Ass.
An… “E Battery?”… Huh.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! THAT’S a beautiful post.
Along the same lines as the A, B, C, and D batteries…. as someone who’s always been geekily interested in lanugage (and who, in fact, grew up to be an English teacher), this has always made me wonder:
Ring – Rang – Rung
Sing – Sang – Sung
Bring – Brang – Brung?? Why the HELL not?!?
Wikipedia is the best place to really rest your case. You can call it a PP3, 9-volt, transistor battery or radio battery, but never an E.
Christina – some of my alarm clocks that have battery backup require 9-volts. Something else in my house too (besides the smoke detector) but I can’t remember what it is right now offhand.
Smoke detectors, alarm clocks, and my forehead-scanning thermometer all require 9-volt batteries;>
I call them “7-volts”, even though they’re really 9 volts. I like to pretend that they’re not all that…even though they think they are.
um….i hate to go against the grain here, but my dad used to call them Es. i don’t know why. i looked online and you’re right, there is no evidence of that being the right name. but just the same, he did. that probably doesn’t make jack feel any better since my dad is 70+ years old, mormon and slightly senile but maybe his dad or his dad’s dad called them that….?
Being right is the best.