Pocket Adder - Save The Economy In Earth-Toned 70's Style

The USA in the 1970's wasn't just joyous corduroy and the golden age of game shows. In those days the USA faced serious economic recession because of oil embargoes. That could never happen again, right? Thankfully someone was able to send the “Shopping Calculator Pocket Adder” through time to the present day to help us avoid a similar fate.

The Pocket Adder is a handheld plastic gimmick with plungers that fall under your four fingers. Each click advances the numbered wheels to keep track of cents, dimes, dollars, and tens of dollars (the nickel gets short shrift, so I guess you just click “cents” five times). As you shop for your Kal-Kan and King Vitamin, just click off the prices on the Pocket Adder. It's mechanical innards will keep a running tab of what your shopping trip is going to cost when you hit the checkout.

The packaging is a reminder of something else. The 70's weren't all blacklight fuzzy posters and mod prints as the decade is often depicted on TV. For a lot of people, the 70's were aggressively earth toned. Remember when M&M's became cheerless and autumnal colored? That's the 70's this device hails from. A somber, penny-pinching 70's.

Sadly, time travel has been rough on the Pocket Adder - mine barely works. I remember seeing these in the hands of shoppers back then, so I know that some of them did function. I guess that makes sense... we eventually did get out of that recession, right? I don't know if this device could help us with our current national financial woes, but it does remind us how important it is to watch every single nickel. Click, click, click, click, click.

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