Back in black. Watch this!

OK folks, it's been nearly three weeks, but I'm finally back into the groove with this thing. Well, I guess I should say that I'm trying to get back in the groove with it. I'd claim that I made a New Year's resolution regarding it, but since I don't really believe in 'em, I didn't. Which I thought was ok, until I read one of my old friend's thoughts on the matter.

Now sufficiently humbled, I press on to more mundane matters...

For Christmas this year, The Bride gave me one beautiful shining present: A new watch. I bought the watch here for $35 from Service Merchandise at Gwinnett Mall in 1996, I think. So after roughly nine years of service, it was hastily forced into reitrement. I should back up a bit to explain.

I had a problem with watches up until 1996. Well, I should say that I had a problem keeping watches. I broke them, lost them, misplaced them, or whatever other misfortune you can think of. Christmas of my freshman year in HS (1993), my mom gave me a nice Timex watch with a leather band. It was exactly the kind of watch I had been wanting for months, with two rings around the face that displayed the date and month, and a little thing inside the face that rotated and showed where the moon was in its cycle.

I think it lasted around a month. I remember taking it off to play basketball in the gym after school one day, and I left it there. By the time I remembered it and came back to look, it was gone. And just llike that, another watch of mine had met an unfortunate end. So after that, I think I just decided that I would have no more watches, the lone exception being a pocketwatch that I bought in Moscow shortly after the fall of Communism. It had the new Russian flag on it and I figured it would be harder to lose a watch that was chained to my belt.

The novelty of that wore off, and I was soon back to no watch at all. I was fully aware of my problem, so I went watch-less for a few years, until I decided that I would buy myself a watch during my senior year. I remember thinking that I might be more careful if I spent my own money on it, and I desperately wanted to prove to my mom that I could be responsible enough to keep a watch for longer than a week.

So I picked out this beauty and slapped it on my wrist, praying that I wouldn't lose it before I got home. I, of course, didn't lose it, even though it probably should have been retired long ago. But every time I had some extra money that I could use for a new watch, I'd get just far enough into the process of picking one out before I would remember that I had something to prove. (nevemind the fact that whatever it was, I had proved LONG ago.)

So I'd usually just spend the money on something else and look proudly down at my worn-out piece of crap service merchandise watch, and count the years that I had been wearing it without losing it for even a moment. As the chrome slowly wore away, I'd constantly think about getting a new one. Everytime I changed the battery, (which I don't think I ever had to do on a watch before since they were long gone before the battery wore out), I'd think about a new watch.

Just before Christmas, I put a couple of Swiss Army watches on my wish list, thinking I'd never get one, and I'd roll through 2006 with my sweet broken-in Lorus.

So imagine my surprise when I opened the chrome box with the swiss army logo on it and saw this baby. My heart kind of leapt and sank at the same time. I was psyched because it was exactly the kind I wanted, and sad because I knew this meant the end of a watch that had lasted through more battery changes than I had ever had to make in my lifetime altogether.

So to my old watch, I bid thee farewell. I can't bear to throw you away, so you'll just stay tucked away in the box that your replacement came in.

And Mom, It's been nearly 9 years with the same watch now. Do you now believe that I'm a responsible adult?

Ok, fine. A somewhat responsible "adult"?