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Seeing the light

If you’ve bent an elbow in downtown Saranac Lake, you already know where Adirondack Hamlets to Huts’ headquarters is. And how could you not, since it’s directly across from the Waterhole, right next to Saranac Lake Wines and Liquors, and two doors down from Grizle T’s.

But even if you’re a creature of bibulous proclivities, while you may know where H to H’s is, you might still have no idea what it is.

In a nutshell, H to H’s is a nonprofit that’s trying to set up a hiking/lodging system in the Adirondacks. It’s a brainchild of Joe Dadey and Jack Drury, a pair of latter-day Lewis and Clarks who are laboring mightily to make this a reality.

The concept is intriguing, in that hikers could essentially hike all day and then when done, have a reserved place to stay. And, interestingly, the “huts” wouldn’t necessarily be huts, per se. They could also be yurts, tents, hotels, motels and so on. How it’d work is way beyond the scope of this column, but if you want to find out more, stop in and the boys’ll be delighted to enlighten you.

Something of note: H to H’s isn’t only a concept — they sell a great variety of merchandise. Most of it is hiking related, the rest is Adirondack in subject, and all of it is good quality and reasonably priced. And though it’s a small space, there’s a lot of it. While I was in there this week, chatting with Joe and idly looking around, I pinned on a display about flashlights and head lamps. Right up my alley, I must say.

I’m neither an expert nor a collector of flashlights, but I am an avowed carrier of them. I have one in my car, another in my house, and I always have one on my person.

Today the lowly flashlight is a whole different animal than when I was a kid. Back then, they were big and fragile, went through D cells like poop through a goose, and threw off a light that was generally weak at best. But today’s bad boys are their polar opposite. They’re rugged, come in all sizes and capacities, and because almost all of them have LEDs, they give a powerful beam, while at the same time go easy on the battery.

My weapon of choice is the Mini Mag penlight. It’s small and tough and gives me all the light I could want. It also is shock and water-resistant. But it is not washer and dryer-resistant, which I discovered last week when I found it among the clothes in the dryer.

Actually, it might’ve been washer and dryer-proof if the tailcap hadn’t come off, and the spring with it. I found the tailcap, but the spring was gone for the ages, so no way would the flashlight work.

But I’m a philosophic lad, so rather than dwell on the loss, I accepted it with aplomb and then diddy-bopped to Ace Hardware and bought another Mini-mag. Then I did an experiment: I put fresh batteries and the new flashlight’s tailcap on my old flashlight and — Behold — it worked.

So obviously if I got another tailcap I’d now have two functioning penlights. It seemed simple enough to do: I’d just call Maglite and order a tailcap. On their website was a phone number for parts and accessories, which I called.

A very pleasant lady answered the phone.

“I’d like to order a tailcap for your LED penlight,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “parts are very expensive to order. I’ll transfer you to Warranty.”

Warranty? I thought. Then I remembered that Maglite brags about a lifetime guarantee. I figured I was in for a real trip. And I was … only not like I thought.

Replace rather than repair

The Warranty department was answered by another pleasant lady.

“Hi,” I said. “I need another tailcap for my penlight.”

“Is it the two double-A model?” she asked.

“No,” I said. It’s two triple-A’s.”

“OK,” she said. “And what happened to your flashlight?”

“I forgot it was in my pants pocket and I, uh, put it through the washer and dryer,” I said.

No need to cover up, I figured. A lifetime warranty seemed pretty straightforward.

“Well,” she said, echoing the parts lady, “it’s very expensive to order individual parts. So it’ll be much easier just to replace your flashlight.”

“All right,” I said. “How do I go about that?”

“You just mail in your flashlight and ask for a replacement,” she said. Then she added, “And since you can get your replacement in one of five different colors, let us know what color you want.”

“Groovy,” I said. “And that’s all? There’s no handling charge?”

“Well, there is,” she said.

Then she told me the charge, which was ten bucks plus change and adding NYS tax ended up eleven bucks plus change. She gave me the address to send it to, said they take personal checks and then wished me a very nice day.

All right, I thought after I hung up — all I had to do was mail in my moribund Mini-mag and a new one would magically appear on my doorstep. And it was all thanks to a great warranty and a mere eleven dollars and some pennies.

What a deal.

And it was … just not for me.

When more is less

A few minutes after the call, I thought some more about exchange, and something nagged at me. I didn’t know what that was at first, but after a while it came to me: To exchange the flashlight would cost me $11, but the flashlight I’d just bought at Ace cost me a wee bit over ten bucks, including tax. The warranty replacement would actually cost more than what I’d pay for a new one here. And beyond that, it’d cost me at least three bucks for postage to send the old one back, or almost five bucks if I bought a post office mailer. So now we’re talking about $16 dollars for a $10 item.

I admit I’m a mathematic idiot, but even I could do the correct subtraction on that one and come up with a six buck loss for the Dope.

The more I thought about this, the less sense the whole shmeer made.

If they sent me a replacement, I can understand their not wanting to lose money on the deal. So if they had to pay postage and all, $11 is a reasonable price to charge. I’m fine with that. But what I’m not fine with is why they couldn’t have mailed me a tailcap in the first place. Both women said it was a very expensive thing to do, but why?

Of course I don’t know how the Maglite factory is set up, but I’d like to think all its inventory is clearly arranged and accounted for. It’s not like they have one room which is jammed floor to ceiling with buttloads of flashlight parts, all in one huge pile. I imagine there’s a system and when it comes to, let’s say, tailcaps for Minimag LED penlights of the two triple-A variety, they’re all in one bin, and all the peeps working there know exactly which bin it is. So if they need one of the aforesaid tailcaps, all they have to do is strut over to the bin, reach in, and take it out. Period.

And if that’s the case, how can that cost more than going over to the Mini-mag LED penlight bin, picking up a whole flashlight, batteries included, and sending that to me?

It seems to be one of those mysteries like the disappearance of Judge Crater or the fate of the Mary Celeste, whose solution will never be forthcoming. But mystery aside, there is a neat irony to all this.

There’s a term in psychology, Gestalt, which is defined as “the sum is greater than the whole of the parts.” In other words, if, for example, you consider each part of a machine or a group, you can see it can only achieve so much (or in the case of a machine, it can’t achieve anything). But when all the parts are working together, they’re far more effective than individually.

But Maglite has managed to come up with whole new concept, which I’ve dubbed “Anti-Gestalt.” With their replacement policy, it seems now each part is greater than the whole.

I feel my coming up with this entirely new concept is quite an accomplishment.

But when it comes to replacing my now-defunct flashlight, it’s not consolation whatsoever.

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