Hand Warmers for Hubby

Mitch and others with Tommy Hilfiger bags await.

Freeport, Maine is a sleepy little town; nothing wild, no strip clubs or anything. So I was surprised to read, amidst the news of church suppers and yard sales, that Santa would be arriving in town via Amtrak at 11 pm on Thanksgiving to kick off Black Friday. All the stores in town would be opening their doors at midnight, following Santa's ride on a Harley leading a pack of "fun-runners" around the town. Wow, how very un-Freeport! So Mitch and I figured we'd check it out, since it was the most exciting thing to happen since we moved here three years ago, unless you count the time our neighbor ran over his own dog right in front of our house.

We went straight to the train station and joined the waiting crowd---uh, group--of townspeople with similar intent. The first thing that happened was three young women ran over and handed each of us a cloth shopping tote imprinted with the Tommy Hilfiger logo. Inside were coupons for discounts and two odd plastic pouches, also carrying Tommy's logo, allegedly hand warmers. (We'll get to those later.) We noticed that everyone else had those bags. The train came. Santa disembarked. One lone member of the local press, along with me and a few others, took photos. Then Santa worked the crowd, or tried, hurling a few tired jokes about shopping and motorcycles and shopping on motorcycles. Getting no laughs, he hopped on the Harley and rode off into the night, or rather towards Main Street.

Santa gets ready to roll off into the night.

We went home, and that's when things got interesting. Those hand warmers in the Tommy Hilfiger bags were completely mystifying: Little plastic pouches of a clear liquid with a metal disc floating inside, they looked like nothing we had ever seen. They were not warm even a little. We thought they must be defective, but after further consideration we succumbed to the Internet and learned that they are "chemical" hand warmers, requiring the user to bend the little metal disc inside to set off a reaction that would turn the liquid into a gel that would heat up and stay hot for 20 minutes.

The lone photographer watches the train arrive.

Mitch was quite taken with them, finding them "awesome," and while I chose instead to go to bed, he stayed in the kitchen and did more research, wondering if they could be used more than once. I left him busily boiling the pouches in hot water to reactivate them. The thing is, I have known Mitch for 27 years and have never once seen him use a hand warmer, even winter camping in Utah or in frigid weather in Quebec one Christmas. Anyway, a good gift for the nerd on your shopping list this year would be chemical hand warmers. Check them out.