More often than not, the gold watch is given to overwhelming symbolism. Just think of the trouble it caused for Butch in Pulp Fiction.
The likes of the gold watch are built ‘for this lifetime and the next’. This is all well and good, but sometimes I wonder, who needs that kind of trauma?
If not for his sentimental attachment, Butch would be breezily motorcycling through LA overpasses, admiring his girlfriend’s potbelly — instead, he’s blood-soaked, having narrowly avoided death on more than one occasion — all due to events set in motion by Christopher Walken’s in/imitable bequeathing of the gold watch.
I’m not a twisted noir hero, I just have my reasons. I’ve never felt that kind off attachment — or yearning. Instead, I’ve remained faithful to the (sort of) cheap, non-statement statement watch. Cleansed of its deeper meaning, it’s a relief really.
Would I instinctively dive off a dock if my wrist-piece splashed into the great blue abyss? I might say the mourner’s kaddish and reapply my sunscreen. Like I said, I’m no good.
But if I’m honest, my non-attachment has its own inheritance. As a kid, part of the Sunday morning routine might include early morning activities like McDonald’s breakfast and outings to the Dollar store. There, my dad picked up stretch band seikos and reading glasses (while I filled a shopping basket with who knows what, a Polly Pocket?). Replenishing these staples as coolly as picking up a carton of OJ seemed like a good life lesson to remember for later.
Checking the time on a Timex wrist-piece with rainbow-colored numerals is guaranteed to make you feel like it's time to eat a banana split.
A Casio Gold Digital will conjure up the no-nonsense '80s power broker inside of you.
A Shark Underwater Freestyle? Might as well be flipping around in a pool of Marco Polo-ers, looking forward to unwrapping a future frozen Snickers.
Rather than a grand timepiece built for a lifetime, I’m comforted by a more laidback idea, that there’s a watch for all seasons.
