Do you have the time?

Apparently, I'm behind the times when it comes to telling time.
I've been looking for a new watch lately. I like the one I have, but it's starting to look a little worse for wear. The crystal is cracked, and the gold plating on the case is starting to look a little rough after something like a decade of use. Like all of us, it's just plain getting older.
I don't need anything flashy. I'm a newspaper editor, not a rapper. I don't need the bling. Just something simple that looks good. I've found a few things that are close to what I want, but nothing that's exactly right. At least not for less than $1,000.
But now I lean the fact I'm looking at all means I'm about as with it as MC Hammer.
According to a Dec. 23 article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, none of the cool kids wear watches anymore. They all keep time on their cell phones and iPods. Watches, they say, are good when you want to dress up for fancy occasions but not for much else. Like tuxedoes and underarm deodorant.
"I have the cell phone, and it's all I use to look at time," 21-year-old Nathan Hoeppner told the Journal-Sentinel reporter. "It would be a duplication of time devices if I would wear a watch."
Another person quoted in the story referred to a friend who regularly wears a watch as "a dork."
I can think of several good reasons people wouldn't consider me cool. For example, I'm a 31-year-old white guy who just used the word "bling." I just don't think regularly wearing a watch is one of them.
I'm not sure what disturbs me more: that people think watches are obsolete and uncool or that I'm giving any real weight to fashion advice from people who live in Wisconsin.
In any case, I disagree with the idea watches have outlived their usefulness. And it will take a lot more than a bunch of Wisconsinites in their teens and early 20s to convince me watches are uncool.
Except for those digital watches with the calculator built in. Those are pretty dorky.
Other watches, though, have a lot going for them. I've worn a watch nearly every day since probably junior high school. The one I'm wearing now was a gift to replace a watch that fell off my wrist at a concert. I found it after the crowd cleared out — plus one other watch — but both had been trampled beyond repair. Before that, I wore a series of unremarkable watches, most of them probably digital. Now, I don't think I'd feel quite right without one. And while most people already probably think I'm not quite right, I'd at least like to feel normal myself.
I like watches, and I don't care what a bunch of punks hanging out at some Milwaukee mall have to say. Being able to tell time is nice, but it's only part of the appeal. I've gotten used to the feel of one on my wrist, and I like the way they look. I like the idea that mechanical systems invented more than 100 years ago are still useful in at least one small way. And I like the idea of all those little pieces working together to keep something resembling accurate time.
There's a metaphor in there about society and everybody working together, but I'm afraid commenting on it would make people think I'm an even bigger dork.
It's true I can probably keep more accurate time on my cell phone, which sets its clock according to the signal it gets, or on my iPod, which resets itself every time I plug it into my computer. But neither one feels quite as satisfying as using a watch. Besides, I don't take my iPod with me everywhere I go and I think I'd feel too much like a Star Trek character checking his Tricorder if I pulled out my cell phone every time I needed to know whether I was going to be late for an appointment.
The expert consulted for the story, mall watch kiosk manager Chuck Reardon, said business has suffered due to the lack of interest among young people in using watches to tell time. He holds out hope, though, that yet-to-be invented high-tech communicator watches "like (in) Dick Tracy" will renew interest in watches as functioning timepieces. I wish him luck, but I'm not sure a 75-year-old comic strip is really the thing to appeal to the kids.
I don't know what the future holds for watches. And I guess I don't care all that much. As long as I can find something that works for me it doesn't matter if the rest of the world thinks I'm a giant dweeb.
You know, more than they already do.