"Grumble, and $15 gone. "

That's nothing. You probably have your first dollar and you got better credit than at least 90 % of the population in this country.

But I do understand that $15 is probably $20 today. That can probably still get you a bag of weed over there in case you happen to smoke it.

Anyway, I think we have to see by now that batteries leak whether you use them or not. When depends on the brand I guess, or not so much. Maybe the manufacturer. The company that sells Duracells is probably not in the US so they probably have them made elswhere. Hell, Union Carbide was doing that in India when my sister still needed a fake ID to drink. Boy if I had some money when their stock dropped like a rock I could have made a nice little pile.

Speaking of which, how come that package says "Piles" on it ? Is that some foreign word for batteries ? In fact those aren't even batteries technically, they are cells. A battery means a bunch of them like a nine volt. But like alot of words in this country, they are used incorrectly, but once accepted the thing is that the listener understands the speaker. But I have never seen the word piles on anything of the sort.

We have to treat them like electrolytic caps I guess. I have read plenty of people reporting that they leaked without ever being used.