Over the weekend I was reading an article online about the predicted demise of watches. I like wristwatches, although not the expensive ones they talk about in that article. But still, the article caught my attention: I commented to Chris that I’d read that same sort of article back when we were still in Bolzano, and I’d blogged about it.

But Chris had no recollection of my blog post about watches … even though I had a clear memory of writing it.

Turns out in this instance we were both right:  I’d written it, but I’d never posted it on the Two to Bolzano blog.  I must have been waiting to find the link to the article I’d read back then (in February 2011), but perhaps I’d never found it, and therefore never was spurred to publish that post. So, I can’t prove that I read the same article in 2011 that I read over the weekend. But I thought I’d go ahead and post that unpublished blog post now, since it’s relevant again with that new article.

Except … I didn’t update the blog post to change it at all, as to where I was when I wrote the post. You see, I was in a laundromat that I used occasionally in Bolzano at the time; I’ve never been to a laundromat here in Tübingen, actually.

BTW, a  list of my blog posts about my adventures in the laundromat in Bolzano can be found by clicking here, since I did go there often enough to pronounce myself the laundromat pro in Bolzano.

Anyway, join me now as we time travel back to Bolzano in February 2011, when I occasionally needed to use a laundromat … and when I was inspired by an article I’d read to write about watches…

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Recently I’ve been reading newspaper articles that are variations on a theme regarding the wristwatch. The claim is that their time has run out, if you will, and they are fading from popularity.  Apparently watch sales are down, and the pundits say wrist watches will soon become a thing of the past.. After all, the theory goes, doesn’t everybody carry a cell phone these days, which do so much more than a watch.

Now, I like watches, so I always see these headlines and think, darn, could that really be the case that I won’t be able to find a watch to buy years from now? But then, I see that these articles chart the demise of the watch by noting that sales are down of expensive watches. I heave a sigh of relief – OK, they aren’t talking about my kind of watch after all.

You see, I love the interesting, but inexpensive, watches: e.g. the tacky souvenir watches, the ones with some other kind of gimmick, the ones that are merely pretty if touristy. The ones that  — ideally — cost the price of a dinner out at our favorite restaurant at most, and not ones that you’d need to take out a small loan to buy.

Over the years, Chris has indulged my watch “habit” by buying me many interesting watches. For example, he once got me a watch with a hologram of the earth (back when holograms of all shapes and sizes were  the rage), and another time he came up with a wristwatch that runs backwards. I also have one with a 24-hour clock face, and one that has text running in a spiral around the dial that says “I love you” in 5 different languages. Awww. He even had one made for me with a photo of us from our wedding … double awww. 🙂  I forget how many different watches I own – I think at one point I had at least 30 (most of which are in storage at the moment).

Now, it is certainly true that in past few years, I’ve seen a definite downturn in this market, as the supplies and designs of interesting tourist watches seem to have dwindled. I’ve got one from years ago of the Eiffel Tower, but that type of watch is nowhere to be found in other cities these days. Where were all the souvenir watches of the Duomo in Florence, for example? Or of L’Arena in Verona? That one I can even envision as a possibility with a gladiator posed in front of the amphitheater, since there are guys dressed as gladiators who pose there for the tourists. But, alas, you just don’t find these tourist watches like you used to.

I guess I can see how cell phones may have taken over, though, so that if you’re a tourist and you’re just lost your watch on a trip, you’ve got a cell phone now to keep you on your travel schedule, and therefore you don’t have as much of a need to put that crazy, spur-of-the-moment,  $3 pink tourist watch.

But hey, I loved that pink watch – it was a nice souvenir, and actually worked for years afterwards before dying and needing a $30 repair job which doomed it to the recycling bin.

Anyway,  it is hard to believe that inexpensive watches will completely go by the wayside, to be replaced by other things that people might be carrying to tell time. On the other hand, I say that, but I wrote this post while sitting at the laundromat. And  what did I bring to the laundromat with me that day that I used to check the time? One of my numerous watches?

Of course not.  I don’t always remember to put on a watch before I leave the house these days … but I do always have my cell phone with me. 😉