My Stupid Watch (Band)

My watch is great. It's a SEIKO Chronograph, which translates to "watch". It's got a stopwatch with a cool red sweeping second hand, and a "tachymeter". Tachymeter translates to "numbers around the diameter of the face". You can use the second hand and the markings to see how long it takes you you travel 1000m and then you can calculate your speed. I guess the guys at SEIKO thought that there's a lot of people owning cars with odometers but no spedometers or something. If I ever have a 400km/h car and need to go 1km to Hungry Jacks, I'll know to allow 9 seconds. Anyway, the watch.. nay, chronograph itself is great.

The band however, sucks! It's one of those metal ones that has a couple of curved plates that fold together under your wrist when it's closed and open on a hinge when you flick it open. So far so good. Except the thing FLIES open any time you attempt to do anything with the limb it's on. Like open a door, or close a door, or pick something up or turn your wrist to see the time, or think about turning your wrist to check the time. Maybe it's got metal fatigue. I certainly have useless watch band fatigue.

I took it to a watchmaker at Marion. "Check this out. Canya fix it?". I figured that the guy must have seen this kind of thing 1000 times. He had all sorts of tools laying around. "Jeeeez!" he said, scratching his head, "I dunno". My mental "WTF do you mean?" was interrupted by him saying "I could sell you a new one".

"Yah, thanks. Don't need a new one. Just need this one to stay closed. Can't you bend it back to how it was?"
"Oooh, jeeez. I dunno".
"Wouldn't one of those tools do it? What about that little hammer or those pliers?"
"The thing is, I dunno how long it would last"
"Let's find out. What about that round thing with the thread. Would that do it?"
"Maybe you could get a rubber one instead"
"I like this one though."
"Yeh, you're better off getting a new one"

Seriously, how hard could it be? I ended up telling him not to worry about it because the fruity smell of fresh baby-shit was wafting up from the Ensign, who's obviously been watching the exhange with the same bemused disgust as myself. Lacking the linguistic skills to express her displeasure at the ineptitude on display, she'd clearly made a frank statement the only way she knew how. I lingered just enough for the alleged watchmaker to sniff the acrid air, and then headed for the baby-change room. At least they have Hi-Five on the TV.

As I scraped babyshit off my daughter clammy date, feeling the unnerving warmth through the wiper, I pondered three things.

- How carrot rice and corn all seems to get the "Yep, straight through mate" call by the intestinal door bitch, arriving at the bowels unscathed like some fecal VIP.
- How the chicks on Hi-Five are tubbing out.
- And how customer service by watchmakers has gone the way of the Dodo.

At length, I emerged from the humid, fetid labyrinth of the change facility and re-entered the mall proper. With the third revelation fresh in my mind, I set a vector for the nearest carpark exit, shooting a middle finger salute to the watchmaker as I passed. My watch band shot open and dropped my watch to my elbow as usual.