This morning my wristwatch fell into my tea.
My morning mug of tea (Ceylon, since you ask) was on the floor and I was carelessly putting on my watch when it slipped off my wrist and plunged - plop! - straight into the tea. I fished it out straight away, dried it off, hoped for the best - and I can report that it is no worse for the experience and is still keeping excellent time. This is probably because it is such a basic watch - a Sekonda quartz, slim, simple, with a plain dial and roman numerals. I can't remember what I paid for it, but I remember noting, when it first needed a new strap (it's been through a good half dozen over the years), that the strap was costing more than the watch did. I've never understood some men's passion for big chunky expensive watches with lots of dials and gizmos. Surely all anyone requires from a watch is that it sits easily and discreetly on the wrist, has a dial that's easy to read, and tells the time accurately. And if it still does that after being dunked in tea, so much the better.
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Hear hear. My older brother is into ridiculously expensive watches and even has a display case to put them in (puke) the thing that really gets me though is that you have to wind them all the time. I have a cheap(ish) watch that I dont have to wind at all. Seems like I got the better deal.
ReplyDeleteHaven't mobile phones made watches obsolete?
ReplyDeleteHave mobile phones got a sweep second hand as standard Gaw? Can you, more to the point, drop them in your tea?
ReplyDeleteNo way, Gaw! Can you wear your phone on your wrist and glance at it?
ReplyDeleteThe other essential on a watch is the date, for me. I've got a Citizen Eco-Drive which doesn't need batteries or winding, and thus, with any luck, will last me forever.
That's a great opening line, btw, Nige. Reminds me of the brilliant poem "Daddy fell into the pond." (Check out ToE for a clumsy mishap of my own).
I'll be honest, Nige. I'm surprised by this post. I'vep always thought of you as a pocket watch and fob man.
ReplyDeleteAlthough we usually had food on the table when I was at school, my mum couldn't afford a watch for me, and I pretended with the other kids that I didn't want one anyway. This carried on into adulthood, and I discovered, in a rather contrarian way, that in fact I really didn't need one as, at any given moment I could tell anybody the time give or take 5 minutes - which is accurate enough, I feel. My wile was to almost subconsciously keep an eye on the time throughout the day - in shops, on office walls, on the wrists of others, on public buildings - in fact just about anywhere. It's become a 'thing' in my family. They know I have never owned a timepiece; they stopped testing me years ago; they always lose the bet; I'm always close.
ReplyDeleteHmmn. According to his biographer, the naturalist C.J.P. Ionides whose passion in life was snakes - he thought little of resting a puff adder on his lap - "threw his watch away in 1927 and never again carried one". My theory is that if you leave your watch at home you will have a more interesting day than if you take it with you and, with a bit of practice, find that your body clock is remarkably good at estimating what time it is anyway.
ReplyDeleteBrit - sadly yes, the wrist-phone is already among us. Saw a 'sad bastard' on the train last week, talking to his wrist, with a half-smile playing on his banker lips (yes, that's a 'b') And Mark, I agree about the body clock - and add to this the position of the sun in the sky in summer, useful if you are up-country and away from the modern world
ReplyDeleteI've never worn a watch. And I too am like an Indian brave. How. I usually ask squaw for time.
ReplyDeleteI reckon you non-watchers just saw Easy Rider at a formative age. Chucking their watches was the symbol of rejecting The Man. Makes a bit more sense in the desert than the city, mind. I had a flatmate at uni who did exactly that, used to drive me bananas constantly asking the time. Personally I can't see how having to look around for clocks, makes you more free than having your own one...
ReplyDeleteWhen you 'cross over' Brit, and join Gaw and I on the other side, you will begin to see the liberating side of the watchless world. 'a good half dozen' watch straps? What a joke. Tea ruined? A thing of the past. Unsightly pale-skin watch outline, wrecking a beautifully tanned arm...I could go on...
ReplyDeleteThere's a great bit in Ginsberg's Howl -- which rightly or not, I've always read as a mock-heroic piece -- where his angel-headed etc. hipsters defiantly "throw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time" only to have "alarm clocks fall on their heads every day for the next decade".
ReplyDeleteI'm basically a non-watch wearer, but I've had that experience of timepiece bellyflopping into mug of tea at least twice. Perhaps its quite common?
I've been thinking about Nige's incident laterally, as I call it. Watches are a distraction - he clearly lacks coffee tables and/or coasters.
ReplyDeleteWhat's worse is that big chunky expensive watches are becoming popular with the ladies too - on this side of the world at least. Hideous! I'm a non-watch wearer too, lost my last one while surfing(!) and never replaced it. It's tricky to drop a mobile phone in tea, requires some precision aiming, but more than plausible to drop it down the toilet, I found once to my cost!
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