The Scratch That Wasn’t There

I don’t like scratches on my watches. I understand that a watch is meant to be worn, and anything worn will eventually collect marks along the way, but it still bothers me. Especially when the watch is new. And especially when the scratch is caused by my own carelessness.

Not long after I acquired my Reverso Tribute Nonantième, I decided to wear it to work. The Nonantième was created for the ninetieth anniversary of the Reverso and was unlike any other Reverso I owned. The front was wonderfully traditional, but turning the case over revealed something completely different: a jumping digital hour, an analog minute display, and a day-and-night indicator. After owning it for a very few weeks, one morning, I pulled into the garage at work and dropped a pen. It rolled underneath the driver’s seat and without thinking, I reached underneath with my left hand. Then I felt it: the watch scrape against something beneath the seat. My heart sank! I immediately flipped the Reverso over so I wouldn’t have to see it, taking the advantage of owning a Reverso. Throughout the day, though, I kept turning it back, maybe the scratch wasn’t as bad as I remembered, but it was.

By that evening, I was annoyed with myself and embarrassed by the thought of taking a nearly new watch back to the boutique and explaining what I had done, so I put it away. A couple of weeks passed before my desire to wear the Nonantième finally became stronger than my desire to avoid looking at the damage. I flipped it over hoping that the scratch was not there or it wasn’t that bad. The scratch was still there and it was that bad. Then, driving home from work that evening and sitting in traffic, I absentmindedly began picking at the lower part of the case. Something lifted, a plastic. I peeled away a tiny piece of the protective film that I had somehow never removed when the watch was new, and with it went the scratch, there had never been a scratch on the watch at all. When I got home, I examined the watch again to see if the scratch was there, and it wasn’t. For weeks afterward, I would occasionally look at that spot just to reassure myself.

I had spent weeks mourning damage that had never happened. There is probably a lesson here about not reaching underneath car seats while wearing a watch. There may also be a lesson about not worrying quite so much. I have learned the first one, I’m still working on the second.