{"id":137,"date":"2008-02-06T22:49:25","date_gmt":"2008-02-06T12:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/wordpress\/20080206\/wrist-watch"},"modified":"2008-02-06T22:49:25","modified_gmt":"2008-02-06T12:49:25","slug":"wrist-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/20080206\/wrist-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrist Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Published under the Permissible uses of CartoonStock images on blogs, social networking websites and in forum posts without licensing.<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

Early this year I told myself – I wanted a wrist watch. For over a decade now, I haven’t owned a decent watch and there is a reason. Apart from the fact that you’re really never far away from a timepiece if you really need to tell time. The cell phone has it, the PC, billboards, microwave, the VCR\/HDD Recorder, TV etc. etc. etc.<\/p>\n

I’m actually wearing a wrist watch right now – just as I declared that I want it, I opened a junk mail (real snail mail – not email) and ‘lo and behold – Time Magazine gives out free watches with new subscriptions. Jeanne jokingly told me – there you go – wrist watch, and saves you hundreds of dollars<\/em>. I said – why not, signed up and today I got the gift and wore it \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Did I say I have a reason why I don’t own a good watch? Well – here’s the story I’ve been telling for a long time now – I might as well write it down.<\/p>\n

My first wrist watch is called ‘RUFLEX’, my mother bought it from a traveling salesman – I was about 5 or 6 years old. It lasted about a week – so she returned it (or maybe bought another) and still called ‘RUFLEX’ – this time I took care of it and I think it lasted for about a year.<\/p>\n

Then Uncle Ed came home to Baguio for a visit. He is a CPO in the U.S. Navy and, as far as I’m concern, the most generous person I know. We always love it when Uncle Ed is around – we get to try new things and get to buy new clothes even if it’s not Christmas. I don’t know what urged him to give me his Seiko watch – perhaps nakulitan sa akin sa kahihingi<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Seiko Gold Automatic with 25 Jewels<\/strong> was the most expensive possession I had back then. I wore it everyday and it makes me feel special wearing it. I look after it and was with me for over 15 years. I graduated my Engineering degree wearing this watch.<\/p>\n

The only problem with it is its band – the original band went really quick – so I had a string of cheap bands with this watch – fat leather, uncoordinated silver color bands, off color yellow – and at one point I even fashioned a series of safety pins (aspili<\/em>). It is at this time when Uncle Ed once again was home. He was sporting a quartz Citizen Watch given as an anniversary gift to him by Aunt Del. There is no way anyone could ask this off him (arbor<\/em>). But he took off his watch and offered that we exchange. He wanted to have mine serviced and a real band fitted in America. We are to exchange until the next time he will come back to the Philippines – whenever that may be. He said, anyone who could keep a watch for 15 years can certainly take care of his watch for a few years.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, my next few years will now be spent in Manila. Sad to say, but my trusting nature was served with a realization that I’m now living in a rather impersonal city. I left my Uncle Ed’s watch next to a sink in an office toilet as I took it off to wash my hands and forgot to put it back. It was only a few minutes when I realize but when I came back – it was gone. I didn’t show any emotions back then but I was very upset. All my friends started looking for it and was raised as an incident in the office. Suspicions were raised and it was turning ugly. Eventually I let go, knowing that who ever took it has now clammed up for fear of dismissal if it was ever found out.<\/p>\n

Years later, Uncle Ed would once again come home. I was avoiding him – but he’s a father to me and I enjoy his company so I can’t really stay away. When we had our moment, we talked for a long time but the subject of the watch was not being brought up like the proverbial elephant-in-the-room<\/em>. We will pause for a moment and go off tangent on another topic.<\/p>\n

It was me who eventually brought it up – I asked if I could have my watch back. He gulped and stood uncomfortably – he said, I wish you never brought it up – I’m really sorry but I lost it. It must have dropped off my jacket on a fishing trip in Hawaii<\/em>. I smiled and inside I was jumping for joy and very much relieved. Then it was his turn to ask – as I told him about my story – we hugged – both relieved that what we’ve been trying to avoid had actually canceled each other out.<\/p>\n

Since then, I could not get myself to buy a good watch. I bought dozens of imitation watch in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Canada in some of my trips – but they all lasted no more than my first RUFLEX \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cartoon quip and cheap watches. A story I’ve been telling for years – might as well write it for posterity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal-entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rommelpascual.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}