One thing you may or may not know about clocks is that they don’t use the same Roman Numeral system that is used virtually everywhere else. It’s almost the same, but the number 4 is more often than not IIII rather than IV. There are a lot of theories as to why this is the case, but it is so. If you want to make a quick buck, find a watch that uses the correct “IV” and bet them that you can see something unsual about the clock that they can’t. It may take a little while to collect because they’ll doubt you at first, but the majority of clocks use IIII. I’ve personally won bets with my mother, two ex-girlfriends, and various acquaintances. If nothing else it’s good for them buying you a beer next time around.

One thing that I don’t think I ever appreciated about leather or fake-leather is now much it absorbs cigarette smoke. Last night while watching TV Clancy requested that I remove my watch because it smelled like cigarette smoke. She’s asked me more than a couple times in the past couple weeks if I’ve been out to “Visit Uncle Phil”, which is code for whether or not I’ve been smoking. She believed me when I told her that I hadn’t, but she had to ask because she could smell it on me. Time and time again, we’ve figured out that it was the watch.

Who knew that such a small band of fake leather could carry such a smell?

When I was in the 8th grade my intermediate school took the rite-of-passage trip to Washington DC. I’ll write more about that later, but the most lasting affect that it had on me was that I have not been consistently without a watch since.

I’d started to take it for granted that a clock would always be near. We had them at home, in every classroom at school, and so on. Clocks, it turns out, are few and far between the in the Hallowed Halls of our government. I’m not sure if that says something insightful about our government or not. Anyway, I went absolutely nuts not knowing the time at all times. So nuts that I asked my friend Oswald the time every two minutes. He eventually put the watch in his pocket and refused to answer any time-related questions.

So contra Daniel Gross, I don’t think that the watch business has anything to worry about with clocks for me. The bad news is that I almost always buy really cheap watches. I’m a fiend of the $9.99 counter at Walmart.

For my recent non-birthday/birthday thing at the end of February, my folks took an old watch that I’d left down there with a dissolving band and got the band replaced. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the band probably cost as much as the watch did.

Lastly, one peculiarity about my watch-wearing and one of the relatively few ways that I am chicklike when it comes to my personal appearance is that my watch absolutely has to match. I always, always, always match my watch, belt, and boots with either a black/silver combination or brown/gold. Whenever I don’t I feel so awkward that I take my watch off and keep it in my pocket. Taking it out every couple of minutes to find out what time it is.