What's Up With All The Big Watches?

There was a Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoon that was a play on “Jack and the Beanstalk.” The giant in the story was wearing a wristwatch, which turned out to be a grandfather clock strapped to his wrist. I won’t go into the physics of why that wouldn’t work (cartoons and physics are perpetually at odds with one another) but I have been reminded of this grandfather clock “wristwatch” lately as I’ve been looking for a new watch.

I have been searching for one I can wear to soccer games, around the house, to keep track of how long the hamburgers have been on the grill, and so on. Ideally, this new watch would have a stop watch function, and at minimum it would have a rotating bezel I could use to keep track of minutes. It can’t be too fancy or too cheap, something in the middle would be great.

I came across this watch, and it looked really neat. It’s a little more than I would want to spend, but it’s so attractive I kept going back to it to take another look at it.

Open this link and look at the dimensions of the watch.

http://www.fossil.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=12052&catalogId=10052&departmentCategoryId=30001&categoryId=211555&productId=22086196&N=0&Ns=p_weight0p_order_history1&rec=1&pn=c&imagePath=CH2573&utm_medium=product_image====================

It’s 44mm across. I asked M to use his estimating and math skills to figure out how many inches that was, and the answer is about 1.75 inches. Which doesn’t sound very big at first. But take a ruler, hold it up to your wrist, and imagine you are wearing a watch that is almost two inches across. That’s a HUGE watch. In fact, most of the men’s watches for sale these days are gigantic. I tried on some watches last winter at a department store, and I couldn’t make myself buy one, even though they were nice-looking. They’re too big!

On the other hand, a hubcap-sized watch might be useful. For example, these watches do tell time very well. You can see the time from farther away than a normal watch, which helps if you have failing eyesight. You could use your giant watch as a weapon in case you are approached by a mugger. You can point it towards the sun to make big circular reflections on the walls and floor to tease your cats. I’m not sure, but you may be able to store a small snack inside it. And a watch like this could be helpful if you are in a court of law attempting to prove that you own a watch – the jury will believe you, because they will see your huge watch, and be able to hear it ticking from across the room.