Over the years I’ve both gained and lost personal property. Everything I need or find useful, it seems, just slips through my fingers and is gone. While serving in Vietnam I purchased a SEIKO wristwatch from the PX for $32.00. At the time, (if memory serves) the very same watch sold for $120.00 stateside.
Of all the material goods I’ve ever had and lost, that watch caused me the greatest grief to loose. It was a war memento. The watch crystal had a long scratch across the face from working maintenance on a Cobra helicopter minigun.
Home from the war, I got a crappy job in a crappy factory for crappy wages. One day my hands got particularly dirty. When I went to wash them I took off both the watch and a ring I wore and put them on the soap holder. After scrubbing my hands and drying them off I just went back to work, leaving the watch and ring behind. Later that day I realized they were missing.
The company had no Lost & Found so I put up a sign in the washroom pleading for the return of the watch; even saying “You can keep the ring. I just want the watch back”.
I’ve gained and lost many things in my life through misplacement, breakage or theft; and when it happens I’m usually just angry for the inconvenience. But this watch was the only material object I’ve ever lost that brought me close to tears.
After losing that wristwatch I swore that, – never again – would I allow myself to become so emotionally or sentimentally attached to an inanimate, material object.
twentiethman 