The thing about wearing a watch that costs $345,000, I found, is that you become hyperaware of what your left hand is up to. Like, for instance, when you’re hanging your arm out the car window while you’re driving, pretending it’s a magic flying serpent with a shiny thing strapped to its neck that shoots lasers at other cars, you’ll suddenly think, What if I come too close to a utility pole and my arm gets torn off, just like that kid in junior high that the school bus driver always told us about when we stuck our arms out the windows? This concern will trouble you even more if you don’t actually own the $345,000 watch.
I didn’t think they’d do it. I’d heard that the jewelry store deBoulle had recently taken delivery of three extraordinary watches—excuse me, timepieces—commissioned from an outfit in Geneva called Vacheron Con-stantin. So I called and politely asked if I could borrow one of their fancy watches for a while. I figured they’d have a good laugh. I’m a clown. I enjoy making people laugh.
Next thing I knew, though, I was in Denis Boulle’s office at his store, with the watch strapped to my wrist, signing some kind of insurance document. Nice guy, Denis. But I don’t think he did a very good job of explaining to me why the watch was so expensive. Because when I got back to the office and went around striking poses, showing everyone my $345,000 watch, my co-workers said, “That doesn’t look like a $345,000 watch.” Then I told them the exact same stuff Denis had told me—that it had taken the most cunning watchmakers in all of Geneva two years to make it; that its perpetual calendar won’t require adjustment for the next century; that the two tiny hammers visible through the sapphire back gong out the hour, quarter hour, and minute. My co-workers said, “That’s very interesting. Now please leave me alone and go back to your cubicle.”
Not everyone was as unmoved by the watch’s mechanical wizardry. I met a friend for cocktails after work. Except he’s the kind of guy who’s rich enough that he doesn’t really work; he just kind of lounges around in linen suits and takes calls from his broker. Anyway, I showed him my watch and told him how much it cost.
His response: “Can I put it in my pants? I’ve never had a $345,000 watch in my pants.”
I thought he was kidding, but when I unstrapped the black alligator band to show him the tiny hammers inside the watch, he got up and took it to the bathroom. He returned a short while later, grinning, and said, “You remember that scene in Pulp Fiction with Christopher Walken and the watch?”
After drinks, the watch and I joined my wife for dinner at a restaurant on Lower Greenville. She was flabbergasted by the watch. But not because of its price tag. About halfway through our fajitas, it started raining. Just a sprinkle, not enough to make us move from the patio. Enough, though, that I had to eat with my left hand under the table. She was amazed that the watch wasn’t waterproof. Silly woman. I considered putting the watch in my pants to keep it dry, but my wife doesn’t usually go for that sort of gag.
That night I slept fitfully, partly because of the cocktail-hour bourbons followed by the dinnertime margaritas, but also because I had a watch on my nightstand that cost more than my house.
The next day, I toyed with the idea of taking the watch to a pawnshop, just to see what they’d offer me for it, so I could laugh at them, because sometimes clowns need a good laugh, too. But then I thought of Denis and how he wouldn’t think that was very funny and how he probably knows people who’d shoot me in the kneecaps.
So before anyone could get his greasy, yellow hands on it, I drove back to deBoulle and returned the watch. But along the way, a flying serpent laid waste to about half of Highland Park.
