Whoring for Watches

Ok, so it was an interesting day yesterday. After a half-assed week, I went in to work on Saturday and put in 7 insanely productive hours. Then I did some music composition at one of my favorite coffee houses. THEN I met my friend Frank for dinner. (You remember Frank-- tragic decorating taste, tacky ornament party,etc)

Well, Frank (before we went to Chili's) wanted me to see the 'new' TJ Maxx. New means they are evidently attempting to upscale things a bit- especially in the jewelry department. It has been Frank's best kept secret, but no more. He told me to meet him there first. Chili's is right next door after all. Naturally.

While walking around the watch case and waiting for Frank to arrive, my eye was bedazzled by the following:


I was capitvated instantly (I do have a stong watch fetish after all). However, looking at some prices of the surrounding watches (many in the hundreds of dollar range) I was disheartened. I thought this was supposed to be a discount store?

Frank finally arrived and explained the machinations of TJ Maxx to me. The nice watch case had all the watches that were at only SLIGHTLY marked down prices. The far case had the INSANELY marked down watches. My watch just happened to be in the insane case.

So I asked the shopgirl if I could see it and by chance how much it was. This particular watch (box and all) had been marked down several times and was finally set at $175.00. I've routinely paid over $250 for watches before, so I thought-- why the heck not.

So I bought it.

I admit I was not familiar with the "Gevril" name at all. In fact, I could already hear the "Why you wearin' a Gerbil watch?" comments from people. But I didn't care.

Its beautiful. And its automatic movement. And the back is clear so you can SEE the movement. And it has a fancy double clasp with a pushbutton trigger opening. And it is heavy as lead. So I start looking at the watch more closely-- especially the price tag.

Underneath all the marked down stickers, etc, I finally unearthed the original tag. Evidently the watch had been marked down quite a bit. Before the 175 it was 250. Before that it was 3-something. Before that, 499. And sometime before that it was quite a bit more.

$2,099.

So I did some online searching. Evidently these gerbil watches go for a grand or more. Can this be true???? Granted, even online they get marked down so that they are only 1/2 price or so at some of the overstock warehouses, etc. And I don't care if mine is a fake, because if it is- it looks like a good one.



Isn't he gorgeous? Today I go to get links taken out by a jeweler so that it fits ever-so-elegantly against my waifish wrist.