My Watch Service Horror Story…

My Watch Service Horror Story..
By: Fred Nicolaus

Before I tell you about cursing out an old Russian man and knocking the pens off of his desk, I have to tell you about The Watch.

I believe every watch snob, broke or otherwise, has their own version of The Watch. It’s the watch they covet before they know what a chronograph is, before they memorize Rolex model numbers, before they’ve bookmarked Hodinkee.com. It is a watch you love purely, for its own sake. In my case, The Watch was a two-hand time-only mechanical dress watch from the 70s with a tiger’s eye dial made by the Swiss jeweler Bucherer. It looked like it had been pried off a dead pimp’s wrist and it was fantastic and I wanted it.

The Watch lived in a cave-like store in the not-rich part of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. I’d like to write something else about this store, but for now I’ll simply say that it was run by a tiny man with a bushy walrus mustache of indeterminate nationality named Elias who told very entertaining lies about his life and his watches. The lie he told me about The Watch was that it was worth $1,000. Even though, at that time, I didn’t know a thing about watches, I knew that was too much. But still, I wanted The Watch. I began a two-year project to slowly chisel away at the price.

Every few months or so I would descend into the cave-like store, make some idle chit-chat with Elias, then casually inquire about the price of The Watch. Each time, in response to the $1,000 quote, I would reply: “Hah, whatever you say. I’d never pay that much. I MIGHT, however, pay $900.” Only as each month went by, I would lower my suggested price one hundred dollars: “I MIGHT however, pay $800” in March. Then in August “Maaaaaybe for $700.”

I don’t know if all this psychological warfare made any difference, or if it was the fact that I had cash in hand, but two years after initially falling in love with The Watch, I finally walked into the store with my Christmas bonus and was able to purchase it for a small fraction of the asking price. It was probably still a ripoff, but it was my ripoff, and now it was my watch.

Shockingly, the thing worked, and though it felt as delicate as a quail’s egg, I wore it to work events, parties and concerts for a few months, getting compliments as well as the occasional odd look as I peered at it, desperately trying to figure out the time. Then one morning, I dropped The Watch, and when I picked it up, the dial was slightly crooked.

Up until this point, I had never had anything really “go wrong” with a watch. When you wear Casio digital watches and quartz novelty three-handers, there’s really only so much that can go wrong. As such, I assumed that all watch repair guys were pretty much the same. You pop open the back, you put in a new battery, maybe you swap out the strap, hey presto, it’s fixed. There was an old Russian guy who worked out of a shoe repair shop down the street from my office who had replaced many a battery for me. I figured he could easily fix my crooked dial.

Unfortunately, so did he.

I sat there in the shoe repair shop, watching him work. He had a loupe, a set of tools, a little strip of green felt to catch stray pieces, everything. As he tinkered, he listened to Russian classical music, adding to the air of authenticity. I felt confident. Cocky even. Soon I would be telling friends about “my watch guy” who “fixed up my piece” for me.

Then, he broke the dial. I saw it happen. He had removed it with a pair of miniature pliers, and had applied too firm a grip, breaking the thin layer of tiger’s eye in two. I cringed.

“I’ll fix it, I’ll fix it,” he said, sensing my anxiety.

Minutes passed. He worked, carefully, diligently. I sweated. Russian strings swelled and dipped. Old ladies came in to get their espadrilles glued back together. Finally he handed me The Watch. It was ruined. Yes, he had glued the two halves of the dial back together, but there was a fat scar running down the dial, like the watch had been in a back alley knife fight and gotten sewn up by an unlicensed doctor

“$20,” the old man said, with a touch of pride in his voice.

“I’m not paying for this,” I said. “You broke my watch.”

Immediately, he started yelling. I was too upset to remember most of what he said, but at points he blamed me for the dial breaking, at other points he insisted that he was just a small businessman and I was trying to cheat him, it went on and on. He yelled and yelled and I just stood there looking at my ruined beauty.

“YOU WILL PAY,” he said, waking me from my stupor.

“NO,” I said, suddenly furious. “NO FUCKING WAY.”

“I’LL GET MY MONEY,” he shouted.

“CALL THE FUCKING COPS IF YOU WANT YOUR MONEY,” I shouted, and swept a stack of pens from his desk onto the floor. “YOU RUINED MY WATCH.”

I walked briskly out of the store and back to the safety of my office, my heart pounding.

I’m not proud of how I acted – I shouldn’t have yelled and swore. But after the anger and shame died down, The Watch was still ruined. I vowed never to take a watch to a guy who works out of a shoe repair shop, and I never have.