Weaver feels naked without his watch

Don't look at me. I'm too embarrassed to be seen.

It's like those dreams where you go to school and, independent of your own will, somehow lost your clothes in a situation that seems perfectly reasonable but will no doubt cause all of your classmates to laugh loudly and harshly when inevitably they discover you're not wearing any …

I don't know where my watch is, as of this writing.

Now, this happens from time to time, as I am a bachelor who lives in a tiny apartment who has fully embraced the ancient feng shui art known as "The Many Headed Dragon Who Pretends to Be a Tadpole," or else, organized chaos. Well, technically it's organized. It just depends upon which pile you happen to be pointing at and at which time.

It's not like I need my watch. My existence doesn't depend upon Timex, with its digital face, the dim little light that shines when I press the minuscule little button on its side, or the tiny little date in the upper right-hand corner.

Oh God! I don't know what day it is! OK, Matthew, don't panic, don't panic. You have a calendar at work and at home, and any pedestrian you happen to pass as you go through your day will surely be willing to help you out if you need to know the time.

See? I'm independent. I even occasionally take the watch off, like if I'm working and my wrist begins to feel like it needs some air. Don't laugh. Body parts like a breeze, especially the ones regularly covered by such things as cuffs, socks or collars, where occasionally they get enough wind to want more. Pity the poor armpit, it has long given up all hope of ever really experiencing a strong gust of wind unless I walk around without a shirt, a sight no one really wants to see, no matter how much the girls beg.

No matter how much they beg!

Lost? It's not really lost. It's just … misorganized. Misplaced. Taking a time-out. I don't remember where I put it. It's not like there are very many places it could go. It's not like someone crept into my apartment when I wasn't looking and walked off with it.

Although there was that knock at the door and the UPS person who dropped off that package … But she never came in.

It's more the principle than anything, the fact I'm going to glance at my wrist a million times today and each time I'm going to be reminded, oh yeah, you lost your watch, loser. And it doesn't matter how good the day is going, it doesn't matter how many times I'm going to hear, "Hey Weaver, take off your shirt!" All of that is going to be negated by the single, galling fact I don't know where my watch is right at the moment.

Oh, I'm sure it will turn up eventually. It always does. Usually in the last place I look, although sometimes I admit to looking one more place after finding it so that doesn't happen. (You get some weird looks when you say, "It turned up in the second-to-last place I looked, but I wanted to check one more time just to be sure.")

It's just that now, the time without it is going to be seem even more interminable.