Yesterday, I lost my wristwatch.<\/p>\n
There’s nothing profound to the story. It’s a case of simple human mistake-making. This happens.<\/p>\n
At some point, maybe five years ago, I stopped wearing a watch on a regular basis. Actually, it was more recent than that, come to think of it. After I moved to Baltimore. I had a Lord of the Rings<\/i> watch, and the battery died. I had an XBox Live watch, and the battery died. I could have gotten the batteries replaced, and I didn’t. I found it was just as easy to go without a watch. Time isn’t something I concern myself with.<\/p>\n
And, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t like the feel<\/i> of the watchband on my wrist. The XBox Live watch was a nylon\/velcro thing, and that was okay. A leather wristband, though, just felt weird<\/i>.<\/p>\n
But, a little more than a year ago, I got a Superman wristwatch. Black leather band, analog mechanism, a silver Superman shield on the face. I would wear it in the mornings on the train, then take it off at the office, then put it on when I left for the day, then take it off immediately when I got home.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, going home, I took the watch off on the subway train.<\/p>\n
The reason? I got drenched<\/i> in the two blocks between the Light Rail stop and the Subway stop. The storms had to pick that exact<\/i> moment to spew forth. When I got a seat on the subway car, I took off my baseball cap to air it out — and I took off my watch for the same reason.<\/p>\n
When I got to Owings Mills, I put the baseball cap back on. I slung my bag over my shoulder. For whatever reason, I didn’t pick the watch back up.<\/p>\n
I was halfway down off the subway platform (at Owings Mills, it’s on an elevated track) when I realized that I didn’t have my watch on. I ran back up the steps, dashed into the subway car, but the watch wasn’t on the seat where I’d been.<\/p>\n
The watch was gone.<\/p>\n
It’s not a great loss, honestly. It was a nice watch, but I’m fine without it. The watchband was dry and cracking in places. It also smelled, a distinctive smell, tangy like vinegar maybe.<\/p>\n
I wore the Lord of the Rings<\/i> watch today. I had the battery replaced in it last autumn. On the face is a map of Middle-Earth, circa the late Third Age, with only the number nine — represented with the Tengwar symbol — marked. It’s a nice watch; I’ve had it since 2003 or so.<\/p>\n
Such is life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday, I lost my wristwatch. There’s nothing profound to the story. It’s a case of simple human mistake-making. This happens. At some point, maybe five years ago, I stopped wearing a watch on a regular basis. Actually, it was more recent than that, come to think of it. After I moved to Baltimore. I hadContinue reading “On the Loss of a Watch”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[455,431,696],"class_list":["post-5223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-superman","tag-tengwar","tag-watch","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}