If you know how to easily change a watchband, please, for the love of all that is good in the world do not ever tell me how to do it. I know that sounds like a strange thing to say, but it is the only way that the past hour of my life will retain any sense of purpose or glory.
About an hour and a half ago I went out to purchase some Mountain Dew, completely oblivious to the path my life was about to take. There was a long line at RiteAid today and so I wandered. Oh, looking back it all seems so innocent. In my wanderings I passed a display case where there were watch bands for sale. “Aha!” I thought, “This is perfect! I should purchase one of these for I currently possess a watch that works perfectly well but unfortunately attached to it is a leather band that is a) falling apart and b) owning a really rank smell.” I smiled briefly at the well organized nature of my thinking. Aargh, I was so naïve!
So out I walked with my 4 liters of sweet, sweet Mountain Dew and one sinister, sinister watchband and headed back to my apartment. Then the pain began.
You see, apparently the makers of watches are under the impression that the individuals who buy their watches are alien creatures that have paper thin fingers that are at the same time incredibly strong. What connects the face of a watch to its band is a small metal apparatus that is extremely similar to your average toilet paper roll holder. It’s a tiny metal tube that has a sproingy point coming out at either end that you can push into the tube. These sproingy points go into holes in the watch face. Simple, right? So is death by polar bear mauling.
The first problem was getting the old band off the watch. I quickly surmised that it was going to be really difficult to get at the sproingy points with the band still on. So using a kitchen knife in an extremely reckless manner I sliced through the leather on both sides of the watch face. Then, using a band-aid in an extremely responsible manner I began the healing process of the pinky on my right hand.
So now I had to somehow get these sproingy tubes to come free of the watch face. Ladies and Gentlemen I cordially submit that this is impossible to do. That is of course barring the existence of alien creatures with paper-thin, incredibly strong fingers.
The following “tools” were employed by me in my quest to remove the sproingy tubes safely:
- 1 pair of needle-nosed pliers
- 1 pair of regular, non-needle-nosed pliers
- 2 guitar picks
- the metal clasp of a pen
- 1 kitchen knife (again used recklessly)
- 1 band-aid (again used responsibly)
- 1 nail pulled from wall, left courtesy of previous occupant
Eventually, I gave up on preserving the structural integrity of the sproingy tube and took my pliers (non needle-nosed) and simply ripped the offending sproingy tubes out. Oh man, that was awesome. Finally, some progress! But of course now I have two very bent sproingy tubes. This wouldn’t be a big problem if extra sproingy tubes came with the band or if sproingy tubes worked when they were badly bent.
Long story short, I spend many minutes using both sets of pliers (needle-nosed and non) bending the sproingy tubes back into a shape wherein they can sproing properly as sproinging is essential to the process. Then I have to spend another small eternity trying to wrestle the sproingy tubes with attached bands to the face of the watch. All that needs to be said about that is if you think that knives were recklessly used, followed by responsibly used band-aids you would be correct.
So there it was, my story about changing my watch band. Recently I was rereading my own On Busta Rhymes and was laughing to myself at how funny it was to hear a word like Busta repeated over and over again. I thought I might be able to recreate that magic with ‘sproingy tube.’ I didn’t. I apologize.