Fine Motor Skills

My watch stopped working on Friday. The numbers had been fading over the past few weeks, so I knew the end was coming. I had set aside some time on Saturday to get the battery replaced. The question was whether I'd do the Bill Gates solution (ie, buy a whole new watch), the Donald Trump solution (pay the clerk at the SW Plaza Swatch kiosk $11 to replace the battery for me), or the Bob Villa solution (buy a new $3 battery at the grocery store and replace it myself).

The A/C in my car is broken, too, and since I'd really like to get that fixed (and it'll cost a couple months worth of my salary), I opted for the do-it-yourself approach. Seems simple enough -- undo four screws to release the backplate, pop the little gizmo that holds on the strap (you know, the little pin that's like a really tiny toilet-paper springy spindle thing), read the number off the battery, go to the store for a replacement...and then reverse the process. Probably 5 minutes total, including the trip to the grocery store.

Ah, but let us not forget to factor in the fact that my visual acuity fluctuates wildly during the day -- due to the "radial kerototomy" surgery I had back in my 20s...a fascinating story in itself, but one which will have to wait for another day -- and the fact that the watch screws themselves are microscopically small. And the tiny screwdriver that fits the microscopic screws carries with it a pretty high risk of puncture wounds.

If you've followed this blog for a while, you are probably expecting to hear of loss of blood, damage to property, or both (not to mention the threat of energetic cursing that one would expect to accompany such events.) I am pleased to say, though, that none of those things happened. My skin remains intact, all of the watch parts were returned to their original positions (more or less), and the air remained free of blue language throughout the entire operation -- Even though it took almost an hour to accomplish the five-minute job.

I can't remember which one of Newton's Laws it is, but the one about taking longer to assemble than to disassemble was definitely in play. The screws came out easily, and even the strap pin wasn't too difficult to remove. But that's not the whole story.

[Side note: You may be wondering why it was necessary to remove the watchband just to change the battery. I was wondering the same thing. For some reasons, the smart people at Timex had decided to design the watch so that a generous part of the rubber strap protrudes onto the backplate in such a way that the plate cannot be removed without first detaching at least one side of the watchband. I'm sure there were unarguable engineering and/or aesthetic considerations that made this necessary, but I fail to see them. In any case, there were five separate tiny fastener operations to perform to remove the watch's backplate.]

Once the plate was off, though, another minor obstacle appeared. There was a sticker covering the battery, with a cryptic label about shorting the whosit across the whatsit to reset. Huh? Won't removing the battery and putting in a new one reset it? After all, the darn thing is as dead as Vanilla Ice's career right now, so why wouldn't inserting a new power supply cause an automatic reset? And to add to the difficulty, there was another screw holding down the sticker fixture, and it was even tinier than the ones on the backplate.

I can say with pride, though, that I was able to eventually remove the battery, and I even had the foresight to stick all the munchkin screws to a piece of scotch tape, and then shove them in a baggie for good measure. I didn't want to lose them on the way to the store to pick up the new battery. I was quite proud of myself at this point. Unfortunately, I had run out of time, and needed to head to the pool to coach swim practice. I loaded the tiny tools, the watch parts, and the screw baggie into my pocket, and headed for King Soopers.

The battery was in stock, and inexpensive. All that remained was re-assembly. I should be able to do that and still make the start of practice. Shouldn't I?

Well, you'd think so. And in fact, the re-insertion of the teeny little screws was actually accomplished in short order. (I'll spare you the details of the precautions I made to ensure that I'd be able to find the screws if I dropped them. Multiple paper towels were involved (which would horrify the Green Police), so I'll just skip that part.) But for some reason, the watchband spring pin just did NOT want to go back into its little hole. I made about 70 million attempts before I gave up and left the locker room.

I was late to practice, and my watch was still in pieces. Sigh. I swam without benefit of a personal chronometer, but somehow managed to get by with using the gigantic pace clocks on the wall. And to my surprise, my very first attempt to re-insert the pin after practice was instantly successful. Cool. So now I once again know what time it is, and can take immense pride in knowing that even with poor eyesight, questionable trifocals, non-delicate fingers, and minimal dexterity...I was still able to perform a challenging mechanical task without injury, even while using tools with sharp edges.

If you were in the room with me now, I would request a congratulatory high five. But as it is, I'll simply thank you for your time, and wish you a great day!