Warts and all...

We've all heard that saying.  You take the good with the bad.  I had no idea how many warts I have until today.

Nothing to do with a dermatologist.

Joan ordered a looper for my guitar.  For my boating friends, this looper has nothing to do with taking your boat around the Great Loop (people who do that call themselves "loopers").

This looper is an electronic pedal that records what you play when you press a footswitch.  Press the footswitch again, and it plays what you just recorded.  The idea behind it is: you can lay down a rhythm guitar "loop," then play a lead over the top of that recording when it is played back.  It will make the playing sound full.

When we ordered the looper, we saw that it does not come with the cable necessary to plug it in; doesn't run on batteries, either.  Ohhhhh... so that is the "wart" you are talking about: the cord that goes from every electronic gizmo you have ever bought that plugs into a wall socket... they generally have a "wart" (black hunk on the cord) that converts the ac power to the proper DC current necessary to power the device.

Joan looked - yes, we have a wall wart that is 9 volt.

The looper came in today.  Looks nicely made.  I was anxious to plug it in and try it out.  The 9v wall wart we have has the type of connection, but the connector is too small.  Yep - won't fit.  That started "the quest": the search and ID for every wall wart we have.

Have you ever looked at your assortment of wall warts?  We found other 9v warts with the wrong kind of connector.  Plenty of 12v warts... with the wrong kind of connector.  A few 6v and 5.8v wall warts... with the wrong kind of connector.  A 24v wall wart with the right connector.  Then, a couple 12v warts with the right kind of connector.  But, NO wall wart that was 9v with the right size connector.  Warts for phones.  Warts for hand-held radios.  Warts for portable stereos.  A wart for a Sony Watchman TV (that doesn't receive digital signals).  Warts for hair clippers.  Warts for specialized printers.  We have warts for stuff that we no longer have the stuff!  There had to be 25 warts that we came across in the quest.  And, not a one of them will find this nifty looper.

I gave up the search 40 minutes ago; the Blonde is still on the hunt.  She found a few more warts that we can't identify what they go to.  Like old photographs (of people you don't even know), it is hard to throw them out.

Tomorrow, I will head to the store that used to be our local Radio Shack, and actually pay good money for another wart.  Yes, we could have bought one with the looper.

It is like Christmas morning when you were a kid, and the box says, "Batteries not included"... and no one thought to buy batteries.  ;-)