Day 176/366

It's ironic that I should have a collection of wrist watches.

As a child, I didn't own a watch and if I had to go out for the day, my mother would loan me her watch so I didn't have to ask strangers for the time.  We used to use public transport and so it was necessary to know the time because our trains left the city once every hour.  It was a long wait for the next train if we missed the train.

Without fail, Mum's watch would have stopped working by the time I'd returned home. Everyone said it was because I have too much electricity in my body.

A elderly friend I worked with gave me a watch that you pinned onto your dress, like a brooch.  Some people call them nurses' watches.

That stopped working too, and although I've kept it all these fifty years or so, it still doesn't work.

When they were invented, I found that digital watches were okay,  for about nine months, then they stopped too.

So in the end I gave  up on wearing a watch.

When battery operated watches became the fashion Mr Honey Pie bought me a nice Seiko with crystal face.  It's the only watch that hasn't failed on me.  I stopped wearing it though, after I left my job around 2005 because I was forever replacing the leather wrist band.

These wacky watches were a favourite of mine around 1999.  I wore them more as an adornment than a time piece.  I think I paid around two dollars for each of them, from Burger King, where they were offered as a promotion if you purchased a meal.

They are now a collector's item and I have seen the odd one or two listed for around thirty dollars.  Some are selling for less at around seven dollars.

I loved the Rugrats when they were at their peak.  

The collection includes a Pokemon watch; with sound, a floating flower watch, a watch with a scratch n' sniff wrist band and a reptar watch with a 'moving' image of a reptar that opens and closes its mouth.

The reptar watch is my favourite.

This afternoon, I spent a frustrating two hours removing the batteries from the watches.

The easiest part was removing the back of the watches.  The most difficult, removing the batteries from their receptacle.

Then I dropped one of the minute plastic pieces onto our technicolour rug and I was sure I'd never find.  But surprise, surprise, I put my hand on it immediately.

When I then lost an even smaller screw, I didn't have the same luck so one of the watches, which originally had five screws, now has four, to hold the back on.

Hopefully, it will eventually turn up.