Slow Down

Last week, out of the blue, I decided I needed to get my wrist watches running again. I have a few, but one is from a grabber machine at Dave and Buster's and one has Ren and Stimpy on the face (remember them?). The ones I wanted to get running again are my two nice ones, with worn and broken wrist bands and hands that haven't moved in years. So I took them up the street and got new batteries and new bands, and $60 later I have two working wrist watches.
   But when I thought about it, I had no idea why I suddenly wanted to get my watches repaired.
   It's been years since I've worn one, literally. I remember that I stopped wearing a watch because everything around me had a clock, the computer at work, my truck, my cell phone, the cable box, every receipt from every store. I didn't need a watch to tell me the time because time was all around me, all day every day.
   And then it hit me, that's why I decided to wear a watch again. Everything around me tells me the time, demands that I know the time of day, all day every day. If I look at my cell phone, it tells me the time is exactly 8:48. No guesswork, no interpretation. Cell phones, computers, cable boxes, they're all synchronized with the national clock in Colorado every night, so they're spot-on accurate almost all the time. To the millisecond.
   My wrist watches are analog, sweeping hands on a round dial, not blocky digital numbers on a square readout. With a wrist watch, I can decide for myself what time it is. If the big hand is near the 10, it's about ten before the hour. But it might be a little before that, it might be a little after that. If the battery is running low, the big hand might be lagging well behind the 'actual' time. And I'm cool with that.
   I'm the last guy to get all freaky and New Age - I've ranted about that before - but maybe people should divorce themselves from the clock, at least for a little while. Let the digital age slip away, embrace analog again. Get back to wrist watches, to pencil and paper, to vinyl records, to a good book on real paper. Maybe talk to your family a little bit, see what they're all about, instead of watching too much TV and taking a pill to go to sleep.