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.”
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