Anybody Got The Time?

I have a pattern of plunging into projects headlong, confident that I can master a new skill, with the ultimate end of saving a few bucks, and then crashing and burning, poorer, no smarter, and ultimately frustrated.

My wife can list the catalog of my numerous failures, but she’s too nice a person to do it.

My latest venture is to become my own watch-battery changer. I have negotiated the purchase of what I hope will be all the small tools necessary to do it, have downloaded scads of information about how to proceed, and I’m on vigil for the FedEx lady who frequents our neighborhood. I’ve secured a source for replacement batteries.

This all began a few days ago, when my bride mentioned in passing that she had about half a dozen watches she couldn’t wear, because the batteries are dead. She and I are both big fans of the watch as a fashion accessory first, and timepiece second. Her tastes run to trendy; mine run more toward flashy.

I have a Rolex Day-Date that’s got to be worth somewhere well north of ten grand. I could never bring myself to invest in such an extravagance. It was a gift from my brother. The night of my father’s Irish wake, we were sitting at the kitchen table in our parents’ house, drinking Jameson whisky, and I admired his Rolex. I had on a 29-dollar watch with a radio station logo on the face.

He said “let’s swap”, and even in the sober light of a cold February day in Wisconsin 14 years ago, he wouldn’t take his Rolex back.

A few years back, I let fly for an Omega SeaMaster James Bond watch. At a dinner party my wife dragged me to, an executive from Trek Bicycles - and obvious watch aficionado - recognized it on my wrist, and asked to try it on.

Made it worth every cent!

I haven’t gone off the deep end in this watch-battery-replacement enterprise. The Rolex and the Omega will NOT be victims of my amateur meddling. Registered dealers, only! The Rolex is a “perpetual” model, so there’s no battery anyway.

But I am fearless in tackling the job with my wife’s fancy Diesel model, her various Anne Klein watches, and my assorted other less distinguished watches. If past is prologue, in a short time I will be either a hero in her eyes - again - or a goat - again.

If you see an ad on Craigslist in August offering “like-new watch repair equipment” for sale, you’ll know how it turned out.