Blasting Atomics

I bought a new watch the other day. Turns out the six dollar stopwatch I bought a few months ago doesn't appreciate being bent sharply backwards twice a day, as evidenced by its split band. After learning that all but one of the replacement bands available cost more than the whole watch originally did, I surmised that watch-buying season was nigh. Goodbye, old friend.

Now, on to the new stuff. As I peruse my choices, I'm immediately tempted by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle watches on the display by the shoe department (where I work, if I haven't mentioned that trivia nugget yet). There are two kinds, which pose a problem. One has a cool dial, but the band looks like it's made of the same material as my old watch. The other one has what looks to be a durable band, but the dial is so-so. Resisting the urge to strip them apart and reassemble them to my liking, I put them down and continue my search.

What I am looking for is just a plain old watch with a white face and black numbers, but alas, they can't make simple things anymore. I skim past the Fossil knockoffs, the calculator watches, the hopeless let's-stuff-ourselves-with-chronometers-and-compasses-and-the-like watches, and the pseudo-trendy asymmetrical watches (I am, with pride, a symmetry freak). I finally decide upon a nice black faced Armitron watch with Indiglo. I'm a little hesitant about the velcro closure system, but it was either that, more cracking rubber, or a heavy Chinese Fossil clone. Plus, this way, if I get ravaged by killer bees and my left wrist swells to the size of a small canteloupe, I might still be able to note the timeliness of the ambulance.

As I haul my find out of the jewelry department, I stop to look at a new display. Eighty-six dollars? For a watch? In Wal-Mart? Looking closer, though, I see why they're so proud of it. It's not just a watch. It's not even just a solar watch. It's an atomic solar watch.

Now, I've got nothing against atoms, or their constituent parts, for that matter. They're to be commended for their...being in stuff. But do I really need to be informed as to what time it is, exactly? Right down to the millionth of a second? Do I need my watch to pick up radio waves that inform it of its miscalculations and inconsistencies? When did quartz become insufficient?!?

Now, atomic timekeeping devices have their place. I lobbied for atomic clocks at the college I used to go to, because the clocks scattered around campus were ridiculously misaligned - sometimes by as much as ten minutes, which forces students to memorize the clocks in between four and six classrooms if they don't want tardies to pile up. But on your wrist? Denying yourself the ability to set your watch five minutes fast to keep yourself from being late? Or setting it five minutes slow after you're already late to give yourself an alibi?

No, no, thirty-seven times no. I like being able to manipulate time. I mean, who's to say that time is standardized? Why is there no metric expression of time? There is really no way to stop me from inventing a new standard. So I will. My new basis of time measurement is the time it takes for a sixty watt lightbulb to drop one foot in Earth's gravity: one bulbdrop. Opening a book takes about one bulbdrop; writing a sentence takes about twelve bulbdrops. I can make watches that tick on bulbdrops. I could probably get the United Arab Emirates or the Azores to standardize to bulbdrops if I was really nice. Before you say it, yes, I do have better things to do than standardize marginal countries to a new time format. But you can't make me swallow your preciously precise seconds.

Not that I'm an anti or a disestablishment crusader - I just don't like having to map time out. I like living life at life's pace, instead of a project's pace, a deadline's pace, or a clock's pace, for that matter. I like sitting down and eating slowly, savoring the compliments and contrasts between flavors before washing them down with a good, full bodied tea (I like Earl Grey and Darjeeling, personally). I like sitting down with someone and playing a leisurely game of chess (so few chess players...everybody's thumbing around on their stupid PlayStations all the time). Or really absorbing a good book (or three - Brian Herbert's Dune prequel trilogy is breathtakingly lush). Or literally kneeling and taking in an orchid's scent. Or throwing some smooth, classic jazz on the turntable (yeah, mp3's work, but it's just not the same).

Now, I know you're saying to yourself, "No time for that fluffy bunk - got stuff to do." Maybe. There is a real difference between frenzy and productivity - in fact, half of the time you would class under "busyness" is probably just you carrying your frenetic pace into time that should be set aside for leisure. So stop. Relax. Drop the needle on some Nat King Cole. Grab a book and a cup of tea. And take that blasted atomic watch off of your wrist, for crying out loud.

It'll only take you a few bulbdrops.