IT’S NOT SIMPLE TO BE SIMPLE [R, 3-12-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Shopping of a Simple Man—IT’S NOT SIMPLE TO BE SIMPLE [R, 3-12-26]

 

I started buying Casio G-SHOCK wrist watches a long time ago, when I was a runner. They have many modes a runner needs, even an alarm. But my current one has gotten old. I don’t know how to make any of the modes work. Neither does anyone else. I have a manual. It’s one inch by an inch and a half and 40 pages printed in minus-3 point type. Probably in Chinese, but who can tell?

For several years I have not been able to change the watch when Standard and Daylight times switch places, but it’s still right half the year. The other half I just make the adjustment mentally.

That’s a bit more complicated since it started gaining time. Now I have to adjust each time I look at it by one hour and six minutes. Keeps me on my toes. That’s good.

But it’s become more complicated still because it has recently started changing modes on its own. When I look at it, I’m never sure which mode it’s in so I push all the little recessed buttons, one on each corner, until a number comes up that looks like it’s probably the correct time, if adjusted by an hour and six minutes. That’s becoming a bit more trying.

Today, Kathy was here to help Helen set up for their joint birthday tea party tomorrow. That sounded like a good time for me to go to Target, the only general store left on our side of town, to buy a new watch.

I’m an old man. I no longer run. I don’t need an alarm, or any of the other interesting modes on a Casio G-SHOCK. I’ll get a simple watch, I said, with an expansion band, with a round face, just a big hand and a little hand and a second hand. If it doesn’t have a battery, I can wind it each day, the way we did in Medieval times. A simple watch, that’s what I need, to lead a simple life.

A young man in a red Target shirt said the watches were in the middle of the Men’s Dept. The old woman in the red Target shirt in the Men’s Dept said they no longer sell watches, that 2 years before, “they” stopped sending watches to them. She did not know why. She did not sound interested in finding out why.

As I left the store, I ran into the young man in the red Target shirt. “Did you find them?” he asked rather cheerfully. When I explained what the old woman in the red shirt had said, he exclaimed, “Well, that’s silly. Everyone needs a wrist watch.” I noticed that he was not wearing a wrist watch, although he had several interesting tattoos where a watch might have gone, so maybe he hadn’t noticed that he has no wrist watch.

I was back in my sedan, now wedged between two behemoth mobiles, formerly known as pickup trucks, when it occurred to me that there are two jewelry stores in the mall, and there is a back door from Target right into the mall. I went back in.

I walk one to two miles per day for exercise. Target is a big store. I shall not have to walk for exercise again for several days. I finally arrived at the exit to the mall. It was not only closed, but barricaded, by some construction project on the mall side.

I walked back to my car, shimmied in between the behemoth mobiles, and started to drive across the great divide [I-69] to the other half of town, to go to Walmart, my least favorite place in the world, but when I got to High Street, I thought, “You know, this street will lead me home. It will be simple to go there. And I’ve gotten used to this good old Casio G-SHOCK. It’s right half the year, and it’s right 54 minutes out of each hour.”

How much simpler could you get?

John Robert McFarland