Item Number 23: Belt Watch

Time in possession: About a year

Description: A battery powered classic-style pocket watch with a chain attached to a leather carrying case. The case has a loop which can be used to attach it to a belt.

Cost: A present from my folks, so free, but I can't imagine that it was more than $10. In fact, I would bet money that it was one of those $10 watches from a mall kiosk. $10 even. Okay, I've now officially used "$10" too much.

Story: I suck at owning watches. Actually, I suck at owning many things: Perhaps that is part of the reason the idea for this project appealed to me: I lose things so easily, so at least this way I can have a record of them, before they slip away into the ether.

But watches: I am particularly bad at holding onto watches. Ever since I bought my first watch when I was 12, I've been unable to hold on to one for more then a year. Well, that's not exactly true: I do still have some of my older watches, but only because they broke early on and have since been thrown into tupperware containers of broken things, each of them tossed in with the faint hope of one day repairing them, that hope becoming more and more ridiculous as additional broken items are added, until the box is essentially a garbage that has never been emptied.

Which is why this watch is kind of funny: I've had belt watches before, although usually the ones that clip into a belt loop. They tend to get smashed between my hip and a wall (sadly, I only have one occasion where I can blame this on being drunk, the rest simply my clumsiness) but got used frequently because of how easy it was to just clip them on my pants and go. This one, I never really used because it was a little more of a production to wear. Then, along comes my trip to Texas a couple of months ago: While I'm packing for the trip, I see my watch hanging next to my various wristbands, bracers and pendants. "Hey! I'll need a watch in Texas!" and so I toss it in my bag and think nothing more of it until we arrive and I'm changing.

The watch doesn't work.

I don't even know if it EVER worked (I assume it did, I probably checked it out when I got it although I have no memory confirming that) but it certainly doesn't work now.

So, off it goes, into my tupperware box, until the day that I (ha!) fix it, or decide that I don't need a tupperware box filled with broken shit.