Missing My Watch

I miss my watch.

It disappeared about a week ago, vanishing into thin air like a wafting thread of smoke, leaving me adrift in Time and Space, boundless. It was set upon the bathroom counter alongside my other accoutrements, removed for the short span of time required to accomplish my evening ritual (toothbrush, razor, comb). My glasses lay beside it to keep it company. It gave no hint of departure. In the morning, when I rose to begin the day (in the dark, in the quiet, softly, tip-toeing across the carpet, sharp eyes open for obstacles), it was gone, vanished, invisible. My bare wrist, untanned and naked, mourned. My brain fizzled and popped in a vain attempt to invent some excuse for its inappropriate behavior. Searching the room brought no relief. I was distraught.

After a few days of this enforced Time Ignorance, realizing that the miscreant was not going to magically appear, it fell upon me to take the obvious step of replacing the MAPDA (Missing And Presumed Dead Appliance) with a fresh soldier; so to the store I went, cash in hand, thoughts blazing with what might be judged a strange thought: not to replace it with a copy of the original, but to supplement it with a completely different type, on the odd chance that it might one day reappear from its long sojourn into the ether. So it was that I purchased not a wristwatch, but a -- for lack of a better term -- belt-loop watch. It hangs upside down from the belt so that it can be flipped up to view the time. This type is especially useful for those who cannot burden their hands with time-based implements (due to needing their hands or wrists for other things). Many Scouts wear this type.

Now there is only the remaining problem of restraining the impulse to look at my wrist every time there is an urge to know what time it is. This is a close relative to the impulse which drives me to push my index finger into the spot between my eyes every hour or so to adjust my glasses, a habit which becomes extremely amusing when my glasses are not actually on my face at the time.

"Dad, why are you pushing your face?" ask my children.

"I'm having a Senior Moment, so I need to hit the Reset button," I reply.

Those moments are occurring more often these days.

Postscript
I haven't found the watch yet, but Cheryl posited an interesting idea: perhaps the cat took it. And she isn't joking. The female cat has been known on occasion to take things out of the childrens rooms -- little stuffed toys, mostly -- to play with. And she frequents our bathroom counter, utilizing it as a public fountain (which Cheryl encourages by leaving the taps on 'slow drip' some nights). So it is within the realm of probability that the cat took the watch to some secret hiding place (deep inside the closet, underneath the bed, or under a night-stand) for a bit of R&R. As Alice would say, Curiouser and Curiouser...