Hurricane Irene: Be Prepared, Fake Candles Edition

Like everyone on the east coast we’ve been doing our part to get ready for Irene’s arrival. We moved the deck furniture into the garage, made extra ice so things in the fridge won’t go bad if (when?) the power goes out, we’ve charged our devices and some external chargers and we’ve stored up some water. The latter wasn’t so easy because every store we went to was out so we just filled up pitchers. Batteries and candles were out too, but Elana did bring something useful home. Here’s a quick look but first, a brief musical interlude from one of the all-time greats, Tom Lehrer.

Seriously, the guy was a genius, and even after all this time his stuff is still great. Oh, but I digress…

So Elana comes home with a few “Flameless Real Wax Candles”. The container makes clear that it runs on batteries and has one LED light. “Real wax” and “LED”?? Umm, can you spell oxymoron??

Sure enough it has… one LED light.

And it runs on 3 AAA batteries.

But it claims to be a “real wax candle” and when the LED is on it sure looks (and smells!!) like a “real wax candle”.

So what’s the deal? The “column” surrounding the LED is made from “real wax”. In fact it is scented and really does smell like a decorative candle. The “candle” is a flickering LED that sits on top of the battery compartment.Together they really do create the illusion of a real (or at least “close to real” candle without the hazard of an open flame burning or the mess of hot wax dripping.

Unfortunately something tells me we are going to end up using these for at least part of the night.

Various sizes are available through Amazon and other fine (and not so fine) retailers.