watch yo’ self

it doesn’t happen often…

…but when it does, i really enjoy it – me being right over the so called “experts”.

in this case, it was watch repair.

i got this watch from my beautiful bride on our honeymoon as an early xmas gift:

i had one similar previously but had sold it off due to weight issues, instantly missing it and disliking the one i got to replace it (bigger, different brand, it turns out far from water-proof). likewise, the other black watch i got for my collection got on my nerves when the battery died and then it wouldn’t kick back on due to a clip that was damaged by the person trying to replace the battery (that was me) so black watches and i had an unpleasant history to say the least. but i found the one above, it was on my eBay watch list, and was set to close out while we were in NOLA for our honeymoon but i didn’t have the bread since i had just paid for a wedding and such – but the ufc did, so she got it for me, and there we were. but since it WAS used there was no telling when the battery would go, and it turns out that “when” was a couple of weeks ago.

fuck me.

but then i got a tremendous deal on this bad boy:

partially because it wasn’t running, but the guy theorized it was the battery. the weekend before i was to take it for a battery replacement, the big black one slowed to death as well, so i took ’em both in for fresh batteries, hearing odd noises as they worked on them, eventually being told that “while i wait” needed to be “come back in a couple hours”. when i did, i picked ’em up and took them home, noticing the time was wrong on the black one so i set it for the current time (11:11, oddly enough) and went out getting laundry ready. five minutes later i noticed the black watch still read “11:11” while the others had advanced, and the light wasn’t working on the rotolog (the bamboo one above) so i took them both back.

i was told the rotolog had THREE batteries, so they just replaced the one that worked the time mechanism (seems like you’d ask if i wanted all three replaced to maybe get more money out of me?) and when i brought up my theory that just MAYBE the battery put in the black watch was bad i was told “oh, no – we checked to make sure the battery was at a hundred percent before we put it in”…

…bullshit.

nobody TESTS new batteries. they’re new. you trust that MEANS something. but i was told if i could wait a week their watch guy would check it out free of charge and we’d get to the bottom of things, so i waited a week. i went back yesterday and surprise, surprise, it turns out the battery they put in was bad and when they’re watch guy replaced it with one out of HIS stash all was right in the world. so today today THIS was purchased:

that’s a watch repair kit – and going forward i’ll do my own damn batteries…