After five years of faithful, heavy-duty service, the battery in my expensive gift Shinola wristwatch just stopped on me.
I should have known it was going to happen because its second hand for the past several weeks hesitated, stopping completely for millisecond, before lunging forward by five-minute notches at a time.
In spite of this, the Shinola time was impeccably accurate. So I ignored the warning signal as it were. A quaint economic touch on its five-year battery warranty, I mused.
I took the watch in for replacement at my nearby outlet, but was told I'd have to return the next day, as the technician wasn't working on that particular Thursday. (Probably enjoying the long overdue, 80-degree sunshine.) I said I'd return. Replacement of battery is free, I was assured.
An annoying and curious thing happened during the course of my day's remainder. Until finally, embarrassed by my automatic behavior, I took my watch off.
My embarrassment? I found that every half hour or so — sometimes at five or 10 minute intervals — without thinking, without rhyme or reason, I kept looking at my watch as if to get my bearings for where I was and for what was expected next on my day's unplanned, retirement free agenda. Did I have enough time? And for what?
In several of those instances I reminded myself that my Shinola pacesetter was not working. The battery was dead, dead, dead. To no avail. I automatically kept checking to see what time it was, is or might be. Most disconcerting!
If such engrained behavior isn't problematic enough, I have come to realize that as a senior citizen in a busy metropolitan city of unprecedented opportunity and equally unprecedented chance for unexpected mayhem, I am totally dependent on knowing with certainty three things: where my cell phone is; where my personal keys are; and whether or not I have my wallet and credit cards with me.
I call these three conditions of contemporary existence "my Trinity of personal salvation." I panic if any item of the three is out of place or missing. When I say "panic," I'm not exaggerating. Without my cellphone, for example, I have no meaningful contact with friends, the outside world, my frequently begrudging ATM. Or 411.
There was a time when one could find a pay telephone on most city corners. Today such coin-operated mediators between self and substance are antiques at best, archaic boxes for graffiti, or, only-in-a-pinch, cruising shelters in a thunderstorm.
At my age I can remember when technology was limited to the finger-dial-your-number telephone — "It's your nickel, sir!" — and the living room upright radio for entertainment, news, social enlightenment.
And, as a kid, the magical enjoyment through the mind's visual input to the inventive sounds of Saturday's weekly "Let's Pretend."
I remember also seeing my first black-and-white TV set. The screen was no more than 8 inches by 10 inches, while the 6 foot by 5 foot console that housed it took up most of the corner of my landlady's living room. (Gay note in passing: I had my first "crush" on a regular of the 1948 weekly "Paul Whiteman Show." Whiteman was a popular band leader.)
Today's smartphone has made brainiacs of us all. Ask and ye shall receive! Whatever info your Global Positioning System-programmed, curious little minds beg to know. Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia will give you instant knowledge. What you do with it is your own damn business. Just don't get caught with your panic down.
And, whatever you do — for heaven's sake, and your own sanity — don't misplace or lose your cellphone. Your keys. Or your wallet. (Your intellectual virginity is optional.)
