Tall tales, small talk, and entirely useless tangents inspired by the daily wardrobe rotation

A few months ago, I was asked by the lovely folk at WorkDuds to wax lyrical on my most treasured timepiece. I couldn’t. I didn’t have one. I do now, though. So please, take a moment to sit back and bask in the majesty of my half-baked, semi-horological musings.

While I’m not a watch person, per se, I do confess a soft spot for the small details. A mechanical watch is nothing if not an impressive constellation of small details. It’s a universe of swishy, spinning, twisty bits all held together by steel and glass and centuries of hard-earned, seldom-shared knowledge.

The Hamilton Khaki King on a Nato strap.

All of which makes owning a watch an oddly meditative exercise in glorified obsolescence, when you think about it. A watch, you see, is a wonderful but unsure little relic that needs all kinds of reassurance. “Don’t worry, little buddy,” you whisper with a delicate caress of the crystal case; “you’re doing a swell job,” you add with a gentle, loving wind of the crown. “Pay no mind to the digital stride of time’s march. You, my friend, are the tickiest, tockiest little timepiece that ever did wrap a wrist.”

Such is the way I’ve taken to treating my newly-acquired Hamilton Khaki King. Something the watchfolk tell me I have no real business doing. The Khaki King, after all, is a tough-as-nails, battle-born sonofabitch reared on a steady diet of American grit and Swiss precision. It doesn’t need my platitudes. That suits me fine: I don’t much care for the history lesson, and my ignorance of the watch’s dimensions, complications, and depth resistance is trumped only by my indifference towards them. It fits, it ticks, and has so far survived its fair share of cack-handed coffee spills. That’s good enough for me.

If you ask me, the true measure of any watch’s worth lies in its ability to turn the act of wasting time into a spectator sport. You see, there’s a slowing, soothing grace in the way a watch’s second hand sweeps across its dial; a calming comfort in its sound. It’s a comfort I find myself calling on whenever I feel beat down by the breakneck pace of the day or the encroaching drone of some not-so-distant deadline. When things get rough, when shit really goes south, there’s no greater therapy than bugging out to the nearest bar or coffee shop and selfishly, joyously watching those suddenly not-so-precious seconds slip away.

There are those who’ll tell you that a watch is an artifact from a bygone era, an anachronism passed off as a luxury item. They’d be dead right. But I’d wager we all need a little old school simplicity in our lives every now and again, and a watch is just the ticket. A watch doesn’t need an internet connection, it has little use for a power supply, and it’d be downright fucking stumped by the concept of an algorithm. I like that.

Ultimately, all a good watch does for me is help to measure up the small, infrequent chunks of time that are mine to while away as I see fit. It’s a calming remedy to the stresses of the daily grind; a reminder to slow things down a little. And in that ticking and tocking away of my well-wasted time, I’m reminded that I too am a wonderful but unsure little relic that just needs a little reassurance.

“Don’t worry, little buddy,” I hear the watch whisper in those moments of rest. “You’re doing a swell job.”