Thursday, May 10, 2018

Watch Out!

Fanciful or not, dividing the world into people who like either balls or bats is convenient. A choice between large balls (football) or wooden sticks (baseball, maybe even squash and croquet). For the sake of this essay, I'll  say a divide also runs between those who choose jewelry and  those who covet watches. As decorative body ornaments go, time pieces are becoming irrelevant when iPhones and other digital devices can keep us up to date down to the second. How then to explain  the mighty masculine market for pricy metallic wrist wear that can cost as much as a car. The evidence is in  those magazines and newspapers still kept alive with adverts dedicated to these upscale items.  They are status markings, just like diamonds - fulfilling the role of 'best friends.'
 The  Apple watch that adorns as many  females as males is a status icon of a newer kind - one that marks the wearer as 'with it' in more subtle ways.
 A Nordstrom's clerk recently told me that the medium priced 'fashion watches' for women hit bottom because of it.  My own search for a replacement watch has led me down a fault line when the old trusty go-anywhere looking-good Skagen watch disappeared in a moment of negligence. I had simply failed to close the clasp properly. Panic ensued. I was conditioned to check my left wrist regularly as though it were ballast to keep my body upright. Now I saw only bare skin, and no sense of the time of day. No sense of where I was or belonged.
Jewelry never was my thing. Unlike most women I know, I never had pierced ears. God didn't make holes in them so why should I? I lived with and lost clip-ons as well as an occasional pin or bracelet (nothing clunky), even a pure string of pearls for dressup. I never minded the lack of sparklers. But I was lost without my classy watch - reliable and self-effacing.
A compromise ensued. I seized on an inexpensive black plastic China-made creation, very workmanlike with plain white numbers on its face. Curiously, in spite of its plainness, the item came in a little black and gray box with the letters 'Tempus Fugit" on the top and, even more quirky, the words "The Unemployed Philosophers Guild" on the side. The box probably cost more than the watch.
 Swatch models I found too lightweight and temporary-looking, though fun to behold for their colorful range. But I hankered after some elegance, something that spoke to my personal taste in design. Skagen offered some online models  but who dares buy without a try when your wrist is unusually thin. Still, that Denmark brand was in my brain. I didn't want shiny - no Swaworski crystals instead of numbers for me; I wanted friendly.
 By chance, I came upon a small boutique shop - old-fashioned to behold, a jewelry with plenty of watches for sale. The clerk smiled a welcome and said the one  Danish-made 'fashion' watch' that caught my eye just happened to be on sale, because - what better or more unlikely reason - she was retiring. I would get a whopping reduction. Alas, the metal mesh band was too large. But it was Danish-made by Bering. Did the company perhaps carry a junior size? No such luck. I took it anyway, this solar activated modest mechanism.  And the box this time was a round opaque glass 'useful for flowers or keys and things," the retiring clerk said. No amount of in-store engineering could change the size of the watch band but, entranced by the package, I bought the thing anyway.
 I detect a trend.