duck-shaped pain

The top story on the local news tonight was that someone damaged part of a corn field by taking a drive through it with their car. It wasn't the story so much that was puzzling -- it was how impassioned everyone seemed to be at the injustice done to this corn. There was a live segment from the field, with the reporter grimacing and pointing at the wrecked stalks, all the while being sure to let us all know that this wasn't some ordinary variety -- this was Special Hybrid Corn! This went on for about five or six minutes -- a lifetime in the word of TV news.

Still, it can't really top the top story a few months ago -- a special report on the fact that our mayor's wife was going to a regional Scrabble tournament. That was even more fascinating.

I don't own a watch -- I'm sorry. I'm apologizing not just to you, but to all the people out there who ask me on a regular basis if I have the time.

No. I don't. I haven't had the time for years. I stopped wearing a watch about seven years ago and I haven't really had one since. Sure, I get the idea once in awhile that owning a watch might be a good, grown-up thing to do, but once I wear one for about a few days, I give up and go about my usual business.

I had a nice watch, once. I loved it -- then I lost it, while wrestling with a small yet wily octopus during a deep-sea fishing expedition in the Sea of Japan. It now resides in the briny deep, and I figured that no successor watch could ever live up to that story. So I stopped wearing one, for that and many other reasons.

Being left-handed makes watch-wearing unfun. I hate digital watches, so all the watches I am attracted to have that little knob on the side for winding and other watch maintenance. I have to wear watches on my right wrist, and that knob is always on the right side of the watch, so I have to contort my left hand and arm in uncomfortable positions just to get the damn knob working. [1]

If I have a clock around, I tend to obsess over the time. Especially at work or back in school, when I would have really long classes. Not having a watch makes the time go faster, and shockingly enough, I still get everywhere on time. I don't know if I have some innate time sense or if I'm just lucky, though.

It does cause a few questions once in awhile, when people ask me what time it is. Sometimes people ask why I don't have one, and when I tell them (not the full version -- I usually leave the octopus part out), they tell me that they could never do such a thing. It just wouldn't feel right. Also, every once in awhile, a parent or both ask me if I'm sure I don't want a watch for Christmas/birthday/the hell of it -- it's like I'm not an adult without a proper timepiece.