その時計はどちらで買いましたか？

[winterkoninkje]

So I went out shopping today for a watch to replace the one I have since its band is wearing out and I can't change the time on it. As some of you may know, I'm not a big fan of wrist watches; They're uncomfortable, they get in the way, and people harass me about wearing them like a lefty. So I'm looking for a watch I can clip onto a belt loop, nothing fancy, just a digital watch that can—by design or coincidence—be affixed to hang from a loop.

I wasn't too surprised that the belt-clipping feature was difficult to locate. But what did surprise me was that I couldn't find any digital watches. Nor could I find any watches for under 55$. Now I'm just shopping for something utilitarian here, it doesn't need any fancy gewgaws[1], doesn't need to be particularly attractive, just needs to work, and for that 55~110$ is a bit much in my book.

But maybe I'm shopping in all the wrong places. Watches, like belts and wallets, are things I only shop for when my current one has outlived its usefulness, and which never seem to have a reasonable central location to go shopping for. When I had to replace my belt and wallet recently I discerned that normative Americans must obtain these devices from one of those frightening megalithic structures so common in suburbia but much rarer in civilization known as "The Mall". Thankfully, I already knew the locations of two such structures within traveling distance of my domicile, and therein managed to locate the needed items and escape without SAN loss or becoming lost in their disarmingly welcoming yet labyrinthine passageways designed to forbid egress.

And so, unknowing where else to go once the Swatch boutique on Pioneer Square failed to satisfy, I ventured again into those forbidding halls. But lo, I could only find one store proffering timepieces. I checked other dens of iniquity categorized as "Apparel"—a catch-all term for anything neither "Electronic" nor "Food" it seems—, but even though they they offered everything from wallets to belts to outerwear to underwear and even shoes, jewelry, and scented toiletries all under one convenient roof, they failed to carry watches of any variety, let alone the kind I sought. I even tried some Electronic stores, but they sold only videogames and Vespas.

Afterwards, outside, reclining on a smooth, shady, cement bench under some trees downtown, I watched the people walking by with an eye towards finding someone to interrogate, someone who would know where I might find the watch I sought. But there was noone, no passerby with a hanging watch. Not even one in five wore wrist watches. "Where have all the watches gone?", I asked myself. Where? And then, slowly, as the creeping rosy fingers of Dawn, like the dull roar before the crashing of a wave, became a revelation: in a world where everyone carries a cellphone or iPod or PDA, watches are no longer necessary; no longer a tool, but rather a fashion statement, a recollection of times gone by. And should you want to make that statement, that recollection should shimmer, attractive in nostalgia, analog in anachronism, a vision that makes one long for what used to be.

[1] E.g. I saw a number of variations on analog watches which had, in lieu of a second hand, a quite attractive LCD covering the face of the watch which displayed the seconds in a font befitting the style of the rest of the watch being redrawn each second in a manner befitting the font. While amusing, and a nifty trick to observe in the storeroom, I do not need this thing.

Comments

[paracelsus626.livejournal.com]

I very much enjoyed this "aritcle". It sounded more like one of those than a journal entry to me. But anyway, did you try Fred Meyer? IS that a dumb question?

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried Freddies yet. I'll prolly check them out tomorrow.

As for my articulation, what was to be a reply has made it into a post (http://www.livejournal.com/users/winterkoninkje/12288.html) of its own. Glad you liked it :)