Herculodge

I Didn't Find My Exit Watch. It Found Me

I Didn't Find My Exit Watch. It Found Me

Before Baines could refuse to come in, Roland’s mother Maybelline, was standing on the front porch. Her golden hair was in tiny curls, she covered her enormous body with her usual muumuu and her fleshy arms were akimbo. 

“Baines, have you come here to unload your junk on my son? Lord knows he doesn’t need another box of watches.”

“Hello, Mrs. Dooley. Your son insisted.”

“Come on in then.”

Baines followed his friends into the living room. He was immediately overcome by a stench that smelled like athletic socks that had been left in the men’s locker for several months. 

“What’s that smell?”

“Roland and I make our own sauerkraut now,” Maybelline said grandly. “The probiotics help with a healthy gut and reduce inflammation. Would you like to try some?”

Baines grimaced, shook his head, then said, “Someone didn’t get the memo. Homemade sauerkraut makes your house smell like dead donkeys.”

“What’s happened to you, Baines? You’re usually such a well-mannered man? You’ve come here to criticize my sauerkraut?”

Baines could not wipe the look of disgust off his face. “Someone didn’t get the memo. Homemade sauerkraut makes your house smell like B.O.”

“Stop it, Baines. Roland and I are trying to eat healthier, if you don’t mind.”

“Someone didn’t get the memo.”

“Mom, Baines has seriously changed. Smokey doesn’t even like him anymore. He was growling at him.”

Maybelline stared at Baines and said, “What has gotten into you?”

“A metamorphosis.”

“What’s that?” Maybelline asked.

Roland said, “Baines has found his Exit Watch.”

“I didn’t find my Exit Watch, Roland. It found me.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Maybelline said. “You’re not collecting watches anymore.”

“It wasn’t a choice, Mrs. Dooley. It was a necessary move on my part.”

“But you love collecting watches.”

“Love? I’m not sure that’s the right word. My watch hobby has not been fueled by love so much as demonic possession.”

“That’s an awful thing to say. For over ten years, I’ve watched you and Roland grow in the watch hobby. I’ve watched the joy, the bonding, the discovery. Watches have been good to you, Baines.”

“Mrs. Dooley, if I may be blunt, the watch hobby is not something I enjoy. I endure it the way a man goes through life with a stomach ulcer. The watch hobby controls every minute, every thought, every action. I agonize at night about what watch to wear to work the next day. I plan for months in advance what watches I’ll wear on vacations, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations. I stare at my watch at meetings. I do several strap swaps a day in a state of great anxiety. I buy, sell, and rebuy watches. I hide watch purchases from my wife. I feel guilty for spending more on a watch than I spend for my family to fly to a resort in Cancun. The watch hobby has made my life a farce. I’ve become a parody of myself.”

“But you are a fine man, a winner in society. Your watch hobby is part of your success and happiness.”

“No, Mrs. Dooley, the watch hobby has ruined my life.”

“So now you’re unloading all your watches on Roland before you abandon him. Is that it?”

“Look, Mrs. Dooley, I was perfectly content to sell them on eBay, but your son insisted on taking them.”

“Very well. Roland can take your watches but on one condition. You have to let me tell you the Secret and only you can know.” She turned toward her son. “Roland, that means you have to leave the room. Go give Smokey a walk.”

“But, Mom, I want to hear the Secret.”

“You will not hear it. It’s for your own good. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mom.”

Obediently, Roland walked outside. Baines settled on the couch and watched as Mrs. Dooley took a sip of water and prepared to tell him the Secret.

 

   

How Can You Be So Stupid As to Sell All Your Watches?

 

How Can You Be So Stupid As to Sell All Your Watches?

Baines hadn’t had his eBay listings posted for more than five minutes when he received a call from his best friend Roland Dooley. 

“Baines, I just saw all your watches listed on eBay. They’re all half under market price. Have you lost your mind?”

“Relax, Roland. It’s all part of the master plan. I’m busting a big move.”

“You sound psychotic. Is your wife leaving you? Do you need cash? Look, man, I’ll buy your watches for more than you’re asking on eBay.”

“I don’t need your charity, Roland.”

“It’s not charity. I want to buy your watches. Take them off eBay and bring them over. See you in twenty minutes.”

He looked down at his Exit Watch as if he knew the timepiece had something to say.

“Don’t just stand there, Sour Pants. Gather your things and tail over to Roland’s.”

“But he’s a watch addict with more watches than he can deal with. I feel guilty.”

“Don’t sweat it. You can’t cure your friend of his addiction. He has to want to cure it himself. Meanwhile, you need to unload this unwanted baggage. I don’t want to see it anymore.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I suppose you’re right,” his timepiece mocked Baines’ words. “God, you overthink everything. You’re driving me crazy. Let’s move.”

Baines deleted his listings, put all his watches in a cardboard box, and headed for Roland’s house. 

Roland was a forty-eight-year-old man-child with limited social skills. He lived with his mother, Maybelline, on the outskirts of town on a lot that sold seasonal pumpkins and Christmas trees. During Halloween when families carved Jack-O-Lanterns and made other crafts on the pumpkin patch, Roland and his mom rented ponies, an endeavor that tripled their cash revenue stream.

Roland was an only child. When he was seventeen, his father died of a massive heart attack. A year later, his mother sent him to a private air pilot academy in San Diego. He immediately drew the ire of the other boys who one night came into his bunk and busted his jaw with baseball bats.  Roland and his mother won a hefty lawsuit and they spent the rest of their lives together, running their pumpkin and Christmas tree business. Wearing thick glasses behind which his sad blue eyes darted anxiously and having a malocclusion in his jaw from the night he was assaulted, Roland was a hopeless case in the romantic department. He escaped his loneliness by indulging in his watch hobby, purchasing more timepieces than he could wear. His predicament was made worse by the fact that his anti-social disposition limited his presence in public spaces. Wearing his Rolex Master GMT in the morning while eating a jelly donut with his coffee seemed unseemly. Or when his mom came home with Chinese takeout, he’d celebrate by putting on his Omega Planet Ocean. When doing the dishes, he’d downsize to his Rolex Date Adjust. He seemed to have a watch for every occasion. For the shower, he wore his G-Shock Frogman. On his birthday, he wore his Rolex Daytona. For chopping down Christmas trees or hauling pumpkins in a wheelbarrow, he’d typically wear his G-Shock Rangeman or Citizen Promaster Ecozilla. 

In the ten years that Baines had known Roland, his friend had never told Baines the exact amount of his settlement, but Baines could tell by the five dozen luxury watches in Roland’s collection, that the settlement was ample in size. 

Baines stopped his car in front of the chain-link fence that surrounded the pumpkin patch. Roland’s German Shepherd Smokey was usually happy to see Baines, but now Smokey was hiding behind a cluster of large pumpkins, baring his fangs and growling. Roland exited his house, descended the front porch steps, looked at his crouching dog, and opened the gate for Baines. 

“What did you do to my dog?”

“Dogs don’t like me anymore.”

“Since when?”

“Since I got my tactical Night Vision over a week ago.” 

Roland looked at the all-black diver watch on his friend’s wrist. 

“Why didn’t you tell me you got a new watch?”

“Do I have to tell you every time I make a watch move?”

“You always have in the past. What’s different now?”

“You and I are moving in opposite directions. You’re a watch collector, a watch addict. You walk around your house all day doing a watch swap every hour in a state of abject misery. Why do you do this? Because you have become the Gollum of the Watch Hobby. I, on the other hand, am a One-Watch Man.”

“What the hell?”

“You may not accept it today or tomorrow. You may not accept it next month, or the month after, but eventually you will accept that I no longer worry about a watch rotation. I simply am one with my watch.”

“What happened to you, Baines?”

“I’ve had a realization. I have a raging appetite to accumulate more and more watches. At the same time, I have an appetite to be happy. The two appetites conflict with one another. I had to make a choice.”

“What about our friendship?”

“Not hard to figure out, is it? Take two alcoholics. One continues to drink. The other one achieves sobriety. Do they continue to hang out together? Unlikely.”

Baines handed the box of watches to Roland. 

“Take these. I don’t want your money.”

Holding the cardboard box, Roland said, “You have to come inside and tell my mom what’s happened to you. If I told her myself, she wouldn’t believe me.”

   

Sell All Your Watches So Cheap It Hurts

 

Sell All Your Watches So Cheap It Hurts

For six days and nights, Baines Beaton wore nothing but the all-black tactical Exit Watch on his wrist. Confidently wearing his Night Vision timepiece, he slept, showered, scrubbed pots and pans, changed smoke alarms, took his twin daughters to YogurtLand, killed house flies and mosquitos, grilled wild-caught sockeye salmon, and chased away a burly one-eyed raccoon eating a fennel shrub in his backyard.

At night, he noticed he was cognizant of wearing his Exit Watch in his dreams. In one dream he had a flashback to a summer day in 1978 when he was sixteen. His family and ten other families and friends had made their annual sojourn to Pt. Reyes Beach where they ate what seemed like bottomless truck beds of oysters. From noon to sunset, they ate an infinite amount of barbecued oysters served with garlic-lemon butter and Tabasco sauce, thousands of loaves of garlic bread, and colossal slices of moist chocolate cake. Ignoring warnings of nearby great white shark sightings, Baines and his bodybuilding friends would punctuate their feasting with forays into the waves before emerging from the ocean. Their muscular pecs shiny with rivulets of salt water, they returned to the picnic tables and gorged on barbecued oysters like savages. In that summer of 1978, Baines had opted to have his parents drive home without him. He got a ride home in the back of a truck with random people he had met that day. Full from a day of feasting and feeling like King Neptune, they stared into the stars with their glazed lizard eyes and entertained each other with crazy stories. 

In the dream, everything was exactly as Baines had remembered with one big difference. As he observed himself emerging from the ocean waves with his friends, he was brandishing the all-black Exit Watch. It was as if the Exit Watch had instigated itself into his past and had become part of his mythical origin story. The Exit Watch had reshaped his memories so that now the watch was not something he had acquired as the result of his obsessive timepiece hobby, which he started in his early forties amid a mid-life crisis. Now the timepiece was something that he had desired all of his life and embodied the glory of his youth. 

When he woke up, he was forlorn and depressed, realizing that the muscular teenage boy was now gone forever and replaced by an overweight bald man who spent too much time agonizing over his watch collection. 

He looked across the bed and saw that his wife was gone. 

His Exit Watch spoke to him. “Come on, Sour Pants, get out of bed. Your wife has already gone to work and your daughters have already left for your school. You slept in.”

Baines stared at his watch and said, “You were in my dream. I wore you on my wrist when I was sixteen at Pt. Reyes. You and I ate oysters together.”

“I didn’t eat any oysters, Fat Face. You did. Now get out of bed. We’ve got work to do.”

Baines walked to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee, and walked to his office where his watch box sat next to his computer. Inside the box were six other watches, which he had not worn in over a week.

“It’s time to rip the Band-Aid off the wound, Fat Face. You know what you have to do.”

“I have to sell all of them, don’t I.”

“That is correct. And to make sure you get rid of them before you have any second thoughts, put them all on eBay for cheap.”

“How cheap?”

“So cheap it hurts. So cheap you keel over, clutch your stomach and fall into the fetal position. I want you to hurt so bad, Fat Face, you never forget this hurt. You know why? Because you will no longer be a Man of Rotation. You will be a One-Watch Man from here on out. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

 

I’m the Hero Watch You’ve Been Looking for All Your Life

I’m the Hero Watch You’ve Been Looking for All Your Life

Baines pulled his gunmetal gray Honda out of the garage, laid down two rubber mats next to each other, turned on a podcast about the demise of linear television, which was being replaced by streaming services, and did an hour of kettlebell exercises--goblet squats, cleans, swings, and Turkish Get-Ups. Between sets, he examined his watch to look for scratches but found none. 

To his relief, his watch did not speak to him during the kettlebell session. He found the barking Sergeant unnerving and the less the watch spoke the better. However, after he cleaned up the garage and walked toward the front door, the timepiece shouted at him. “Fat Face, it’s a bit premature to hit the shower. Let’s get an extra hour of fat burn. Walk around the block five times.”

Not wanting to argue with the barking Sergeant, Baines started walking toward Sepulveda Boulevard and headed west. Traffic roared past him. Sirens blared. He did not like the ambiance but kept his negative thoughts to himself fearing that his Exit Watch would accuse him of being a complainer. He turned right on Palos Verdes Boulevard. After a block, he saw coming from the opposite direction, a frail, slender man in his early seventies with a blue cap and glasses being pulled by a 200-pound dog.  This dog appeared to be a hybrid creature--half dog, half Grizzly bear. Its skull was thick and bifurcated. It had the pectoral muscles and deltoids of a professional bodybuilder. Its long tongue hung from its pungent jowls like a bloated two-foot sea slug. Straining on the leash, the creature lunged at Baines as its owner feebly tried to restrain the beast. 

To his surprise, Baines was not scared of the monstrous dog. He placed his outstretched hands in front of the dog’s fang-bearing jaws and the dog immediately collapsed on the sidewalk, rolled over, and played dead. 

The dog’s owner looked at Baines with a frightened expression and said, “What did you do to my dog?”

Not missing a beat, Baines retorted, “The question, sir, isn’t what I did to your dog. The question is why a feeble pencil-neck geek like yourself is walking in the public domain with a dog you cannot control. You, sir, are a menace to society.”

The man was looking down at his dog and sobbing. “What did you do to my Baby Freckles?”

“Baby Freckles is going to be fine, sir. He’s merely playing dead to protect himself from my wrath. When I depart from you and your contumacious canine, Baby Freckles will get up and you and your dog will return home. Once there, you will call a dog professional to make an appointment so you can learn to control Baby Freckles. Am I understood?”

The man nodded, and Baines continued with his journey around the block. 

Baines got into a walking groove and enjoyed the smell of the neighborhood--floral gardens, homemakers baking Italian casseroles, and fabric softeners in nearby washers and dryers. 

Up the street, he saw an old lady on her front porch negotiating with an electrician about the price of a new fuse box. He heard the old lady shout, “I had no idea it would cost me five thousand dollars.”

The electrician, a young man with a mustache and glazed-over lizard eyes, said, “That’s what a professional job costs these days.”

Baines briskly headed toward the old lady and the electrician and said, “Good day, my friends. I understand my neighbor here is looking for a repair on her fuse box. I recently had a new one installed by my best friend’s son for under a thousand dollars.” Turning toward the supposed electrician, Baines said, “You, sir, are no longer needed here. You may leave at once.”

The electrician said, “Who in the hell are you to meddle in my business?”

“You, sir, are a predator who takes advantage of old ladies. If you don’t leave this instant, you will find yourself in a more wretched state than your current one, and I assure you, you don’t want to go down that road. I can further assure you it is in your best interest to leave this residence this instant and to never return. Am I clear?”

Not saying a word, the electrician hurried to his faded gray van and drove off in a cloud of dust and smoke. 

Baines smiled at the old lady, gave her his electrician’s phone number, and wished her a happy day. 

As he walked off her front porch, the old lady smiled and said, “People like you give me hope for this world.”

“It was my pleasure to be of help. I was just trying to be a winner in society.”

“A winner in society, indeed! Have a good day, my friend!”

As Baines glowed with the good feelings he received from the old lady, he imagined a giant incandescent halo had appeared over his head. Not any halo, mind you, but one alighted by Superluminova. 

His Exit Watch said to him, “Well played, Baines. You protected an old lady from a predatory businessman and the public from a maniacal bullmastiff.”

“You mean I’m a hero?”

“You could say that. Sure, Fat Face, you’re a hero.”

“If I’m a hero. Then I should reward myself with a brand new watch.”

“You don’t need another watch, Fat Face. You need courage. And you showed plenty of courage today. Don’t you see? I’m the Hero Watch you’ve been looking for all your life. You just haven’t accepted it yet.”

Exit Watch, Chapter 1: "Do You Know What Time It Is?"

Do You Know What Time It Is?

College writing instructor Baines Beaton found himself annoyed with the irony that as he sat in his office reading an online article about social media’s adverse effects on the attention span, he grew antsy and quit the article mid-way to post on Instagram a photograph of his favorite diver watch on a waffle strap. He knew from experience that the flurry of likes for his photograph would no longer feed his self-esteem with delicious dopamine. He would merely feel anxious and unfocused, a condition that would prompt him to promise to stop posting, but then he’d get bored reading an article or grading essays and to break the tedium, he’d violate his no-posting resolution. His failure to resist this compulsion to post photos of his watches had instilled a mantra that he repeated to himself throughout the day, as if to utter these words would result in the desired transformation: “Self-control is a superpower.”

He looked out his office window as a large, broad-chested squirrel climbed a telephone pole, balanced atop the wire, stood up as if to glory in the southern California sunshine, then looked down at Baines and seemed to cackle at him when Baines heard the FedEx truck stop in front of his house. He jumped up with ecstasy because he knew he was getting an overseas watch delivery. He ran to the front door and tore open the package to find inside the velveteen box a diver watch that looked almost identical to all his other diver watches. The only real difference is that this one was a “special edition,” with a ceramic black bezel and an expensive black coating called DLC, which stood for diamond-like carbon, presumably giving the watch anti-scratch properties. Not liking the black fabric strap, he replaced it with a rubber chocolate bar strap, which was named as such because its indentions seemed patterned after Hershey chocolate squares. 

Adorned with the comfortable chocolate bar strap, he put the black diver watch on his wrist and marveled at its tactical, sniper-like look when he heard a voice coming from the timepiece: “Hey, Sour Pants, I’m the last watch you’ll ever buy.” 

Baines jolted and stared at the watch with wide eyes when the timepiece spoke again: “I’m dead serious. You will not buy another watch. I’m your ticket to freedom.” 

“Freedom? From what?”

“How much time do you have?”

“Time?”

“Do you know what time it is? Come on, Sour Pants, get in the game.”

Baines was momentarily distracted when the squirrel cackled again. He looked at the squirrel’s bulging eyes staring straight into his. 

“Eyes back on me, buddy. You don’t own me. I own you now. Got it?”

Baines said to himself that what was happening was ridiculous, but on the other hand, he knew he had reached a point in which an Exit Watch was inevitable. He just didn’t know it would talk to him. No, talk wasn’t the right word. The watch did not talk to him the way he would have a civil conversation with a friend. Rather, the watch barked at him like an army sergeant. And no ordinary sergeant either. The timepiece’s vocalizations were those of Vince Carter, the cantankerous gunnery sergeant who was in a constant state of outrage in the 1960s TV comedy Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.  

This is no ordinary watch, Baines said to himself. This is an Exit Watch. And a talking one at that. My life has been pushed into a new direction, and there is no going back.

Not knowing what to do with a talking watch, Baines pretended that everything was normal. He sat back at his computer and graded online essays when Exit Watch talked again, “Hey, Sour Pants, get off your butt and get in the garage. It’s time for kettlebells.”

“My name is Baines.”

“From now on, you go by either Sour Pants or Fat Face. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now suit up in your gym clothes. It’s time to work out.”

“But I was about to make a YouTube video. My subs are waiting for me to go live to review my new Special Edition Diver.”

“You mean to tell me you’d skip a workout so you could make another lame video about watches? Come on, Fat Face. It’s time to shed some of that baby fat. You look like an overfed Sharpei dog with a glandular condition. I need to see you suited up in the garage at ten hundred hours. 

“You can’t work out with me. You cost me three thousand dollars. You’ll get scratched.”

“You don’t seem to understand, Sour Pants. I don’t come off your wrist--ever. Even if you tried to take me off, you could not. I’m in charge now.”

As if to test the Exit Watch’s words, Baines tried to undo the strap, but no matter how hard he tried, the watch would not budge. It was as if the watch generated a Life Force that rendered Baines helpless.

The Exit Watch laughed, then said, “See what I mean, Fat Face. You need to comply with my orders. I’m in charge now.” 

Exit Watch, Chapter 1: "Do You Know What Time It Is?"

Do You Know What Time It Is?

College writing instructor Baines Beaton found himself annoyed with the irony that as he sat in his office reading an online article about social media’s adverse effects on the attention span, he grew antsy and quit the article mid-way to post on Instagram a photograph of his favorite diver watch on a waffle strap. He knew from experience that the flurry of likes for his photograph would no longer feed his self-esteem with delicious dopamine. He would merely feel anxious and unfocused, a condition that would prompt him to promise to stop posting, but then he’d get bored reading an article or grading essays and to break the tedium, he’d violate his no-posting resolution. His failure to resist this compulsion to post photos of his watches had instilled a mantra that he repeated to himself throughout the day, as if to utter these words would result in the desired transformation: “Self-control is a superpower.”

He looked out his office window as a large, broad-chested squirrel climbed a telephone pole, balanced atop the wire, stood up as if to glory in the southern California sunshine, then looked down at Baines and seemed to cackle at him when Baines heard the FedEx truck stop in front of his house. He jumped up with ecstasy because he knew he was getting an overseas watch delivery. He ran to the front door and tore open the package to find inside the velveteen box a diver watch that looked almost identical to all his other diver watches. The only real difference is that this one was a “special edition,” with a ceramic black bezel and an expensive black coating called DLC, which stood for diamond-like carbon, presumably giving the watch anti-scratch properties. Not liking the black fabric strap, he replaced it with a rubber chocolate bar strap, which was named as such because its indentions seemed patterned after Hershey chocolate squares. 

Adorned with the comfortable chocolate bar strap, he put the black diver watch on his wrist and marveled at its tactical, sniper-like look when he heard a voice coming from the timepiece: “Hey, Sour Pants, I’m the last watch you’ll ever buy.” 

Baines jolted and stared at the watch with wide eyes when the timepiece spoke again: “I’m dead serious. You will not buy another watch. I’m your ticket to freedom.” 

“Freedom? From what?”

“How much time do you have?”

“Time?”

“Do you know what time it is? Come on, Sour Pants, get in the game.”

Baines was momentarily distracted when the squirrel cackled again. He looked at the squirrel’s bulging eyes staring straight into his. 

“Eyes back on me, buddy. You don’t own me. I own you now. Got it?”

Baines said to himself that what was happening was ridiculous, but on the other hand, he knew he had reached a point in which an Exit Watch was inevitable. He just didn’t know it would talk to him. No, talk wasn’t the right word. The watch did not talk to him the way he would have a civil conversation with a friend. Rather, the watch barked at him like an army sergeant. And no ordinary sergeant either. The timepiece’s vocalizations were those of Vince Carter, the cantankerous gunnery sergeant who was in a constant state of outrage in the 1960s TV comedy Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.  

This is no ordinary watch, Baines said to himself. This is an Exit Watch. And a talking one at that. My life has been pushed into a new direction, and there is no going back.

Not knowing what to do with a talking watch, Baines pretended that everything was normal. He sat back at his computer and graded online essays when Exit Watch talked again, “Hey, Sour Pants, get off your butt and get in the garage. It’s time for kettlebells.”

“My name is Baines.”

“From now on, you go by either Sour Pants or Fat Face. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now suit up in your gym clothes. It’s time to work out.”

“But I was about to make a YouTube video. My subs are waiting for me to go live to review my new Special Edition Diver.”

“You mean to tell me you’d skip a workout so you could make another lame video about watches? Come on, Fat Face. It’s time to shed some of that baby fat. You look like an overfed Sharpei dog with a glandular condition. I need to see you suited up in the garage at ten hundred hours. 

“You can’t work out with me. You cost me three thousand dollars. You’ll get scratched.”

“You don’t seem to understand, Sour Pants. I don’t come off your wrist--ever. Even if you tried to take me off, you could not. I’m in charge now.”

As if to test the Exit Watch’s words, Baines tried to undo the strap, but no matter how hard he tried, the watch would not budge. It was as if the watch generated a Life Force that rendered Baines helpless.

The Exit Watch laughed, then said, “See what I mean, Fat Face. You need to comply with my orders. I’m in charge now.” 

Should I Sell the Seiko SBDC051?

I love the Seiko SBDC051, but since I've got the Captain Willard, it's hard to find wrist time for it. I wonder if I should sell the 051. 

Wrist Shots of the Seiko Captain Willard SBDC109

Would the Seiko Captain Willard SBDC109 at 42.5mm across and 46.5mm lug to lug play big enough on a 6 foot man who's 220 pounds with 8-inch wrists. I'm relieved and happy to say yes it is. This is my most satisfying watch purchase in 15 years of collecting:

My Daughters Want Fat Dad over Disciplined Dad

Confronting the Disintegration of a Personality

Below, the 2003 photo in which I have given up all dignity for the pleasures of reptilian self-indulgence and a more recent photo evidencing a man who let pride and discipline take hold of the reigns:

The Secret Archives of Fat Daddy Exposed

During the pandemic, my daughters, Julia and Natalie, uncovered some archived photos of me in 2003 on my wife’s computer, and they’re not flattering photos. In fact, they are shameful. 

Disintegrating Personality

In the photo, I weigh over 250, my face is huge, and honestly the images make me cringe with the thought: “There is the disintegration of a human being right there,” I say out loud. “This someone who’s lost his way. This is someone whose soul is wasting away in his personal hell of self-indulgence.” 

Not surprisingly, the one photo that creates the most shame and self-disgust is the one my daughters love most of all. 

Empty Popcorn Bucket, Melted Chocolate, Lizard Eyes

It’s me sitting on the living room couch. There is this empty popcorn bowl next me. Why is it empty? Because I just finished it. 

But the real disgust of the photo is that my chin and my hands are covered with melted chocolate because I had tossed chocolate kisses over the freshly popped popcorn and the chocolate had melted all over and it was smeared all over me. I have what appears to be a thick chocolate beard on my face and my hands are covered with chocolate gloves.

But we’re not even done with this image of self-abasement: 

Not only am I fat with a huge face and chocolate all over my face and hands; my eyes are half closed, and I have that dumb-grinned, sleepy look relief and self-indulgence you experience when you just ate a bucket of popcorn slathered with melted chocolate and something very specific happens to your eyes when you indulge like this. 

I call it Lizard Eyes. If you’re not familiar with Lizard Eyes, it's the glazed over effect with the eyes half shut. You’ve essentially lost your humanity and become a lizard. 

So I’ve got the Lizard Eyes thing going. So I’ve lost my humanity, and I’ve become a fat, overfed reptile, and I hate it.

Bad Role Model, Image to Run From for 17 Years

So two points about that fat reptile: 

One, this image is not a good role model for my daughters. 

Two, the photograph is an image of shame I’ve been running away from for over 17 years.

I’ve spent the last 17 years running away from the image of myself. I’ve tried to incorporate health-consciousness, self-awareness, mindfulness, and discipline in my eating practices, and I had hoped this would set a good example for my daughters. 

Conflict between Daughters and Me: Discipline Vs. Fat Daddy

• I wanted to be a good role model.
• I wanted to be Discipline Daddy. 
• But get this: My daughters won’t know part of Discipline Daddy.
• They want Lizard Eye Daddy, this Mythical Fat Daddy Creature.

My daughters are enchanted with this mythical Fat Father whose bloated countenance they gawk at every night on my wife’s computer. It’s all they talk about. Every night before they go to bed, they go into their mom’s computer and look up the photo archives and they look with both amazement and affection at Lizard Eye Daddy, and they beg me to become him again.

It’s a nightmare.

What is the appeal?

I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure out why my daughters are so enamored by Lizard Eye Daddy, and so I asked them:

Natalie says, “Because it looks like you’re so much fun, having a good time. You look so happy.”

“Happy?” I've lost my humanity. I’ve become a Fat Reptile.

We can’t come to an agreement either. I try to explain to them the psychological breakdown reflected in Lizard Eye Daddy and the moral superiority of Discipline Daddy, but my daughters will have no part of it. 

They want the Lizard, and this conflict in the family has no end in sight. 

That’s where my life is at right now. I hope you guys are doing well. 

 

Commanding Wrist Presence of the Citizen CC3067-88E GPS Satellite Eco-Drive

I'm loving the color, orange accents, and overall wrist presence of the Citizen CC3067-88E, part of the Promaster Land series. I'm still missing the stainless steel version, which comes on rubber, and I suspect I'll rebuy that model.

The contrast of the large Arabic numerals and the charcoal black dial is stunning.

To set, you need to be in the outdoors or by a window. It may take a few minutes or so for the watch to read the GPS. 

The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup crown digs a tad, but not a deal-breaker. I have no links removed for my 8-inch wrist, but may remove one and adjust micro for a slightly tighter fit, which may reduce the crown friction on my hand.

I love the military watch theme. It reminds me of a watch one of the security team would be wearing from the Netflix Norwegian TV thriller Occupied. 

The open dial style makes the 44.3mm bezel play bigger than it is. I'd say this watch plays more like a 47mm.