Humor

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My watch is kaput.

No, not the kind of “shake it and the readout will fade back in” kind of kaput.

We’re talking “CUE Dr. McCoy: It’s DEAD, Jim!” kind of dead. Battery totally dead.

So, here’s the question. In the interim, while I am on the Great Quest For A Replacement Watch, why do I strap the dead thing on to my wrist? Is it compulsion? Security? A reminder of something? Misplaced loyalty? What’s going on here? Am I trying to avoid grieving for a dead watch (CUE Dr. McCoy: “I’m a healer, not a magician, I can’t bring the dead back to life!”)? I dunno.

Maybe I really have become that which I refused to be in my youth. When I was younger and my schedule was simpler, I refused to wear a watch, I called it a “Shackle to the Slave of Time” with the proper sneer of disdain. I was responsible, though, in my snobbery. I refused to badger other people who did wear wristwatches to tell me what time it was. That would be hypocritical like the ‘60s hippies who would leech off of that which they loathed. Kind of guts the purpose of the whole counterculture thing.

You’re “The Establishment”! “You’re “The Man”! You’re living but you are not really alive! You Fascist! Wearing your Fascist uniform of a suit and tie and committing environmental genocide and killing your fellow man with your chemicals! I despise every Fascist thing you stand for and your Fascist establishment and your Fascist car and your Fascist lifestyle! –Hey got any spare change?”

But as the years went on and time became more of a responsibility, I finally caved in and got a watch to wear, insisting, at the time, that it wasn’t a Shackle to the Slave of Time at all, but rather my Badge of Responsible Living or some such noble thing. But now it’s dead (CUE Dr. McCoy: “I’m just an old country doctor, not a watchmaker! People aren’t just parts and gears and a spring and wind ‘em up to make ‘em go, Spock!”). And something makes me not want to part with it until I can find a replacement. Sentimentality? Hardly.

And my car battery died the same week, what’s up with this? (CUE Dr. McCoy: “Things die, Jim, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it! I can’t play God I’m just a doctor!”) So what, is there some electrical sucking aura around me that drains the life out of batteries? Is this something I can market and become a millionaire doing? Or at least be a spy and go to Monte Carlo like James Bond? (CUE Suave British Accent: “I think you’ll find your micro-paralyzer won’t work on me. I’ve drained its mini-power pack with my electricity sucking aura. You’ll just have to knock me out the old fashioned way -- if you can…”)

Who knows what’s next. Maybe some large appliance or small city grid if I stay in one place long enough. Obviously Homeland Security would have to say something about that. Or maybe the power supply in my compu

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