“Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That!!”

I clasped a Rolex watch around my wrist once, it was gold, it didn’t have diamonds on it but it was a Rolex. Rolex is such a fancy wOrd, my autocorrect capitalized “Rolex” all three four times I spelled it out just now in this opening paragraph—it just knows.

The center watch in the cover image is priced at £28,850 GBP which equals about $36,600 USD—the same price it costs to feed eight families of eight for an entire year. I ended up taking pictures of four different window displays at the Rolex (autocorrect keeps doing that) store in Liverpool city center before I realized I just got done at the gym and I’m wearing baggy sweatpants, my earbuds are draped from my ears, my glasses are tinted, I’m wearing a backpack, and my head is covered by a hooded sweatshirt—highly inconspicuous while snapping up-close images of watch displays valued over 1/4 million dollars. I’ll show you the pictures in a minute, first, the one and only time I saw a Rolex fastened around my wrist.

I’m 18 or 19 years dumb, fresh out of high school, a handful of my buddies and I practically lived at Big D’s boardwalk property in Newport Beach, California. That was a crazy couple of years, people were always coming and going, 29th Street was a revolving door.

One weekend, Chicago moved in next door. I don’t remember any of their real names, other than the one guy we called Rusty Trombone for obvious reasons (google it), I just remember they were from Chicago. I also remember Southern California chewed those guys up, they didn’t stand a chance, they were doing everything they could to retreat back to Chicago—they didn’t last one summer.

I’m hanging out on their front porch one day, doing whatever, storytelling back and forth while paying close attention to the boardwalk—a typical day in Orange County. One of them has on a gold watch, a Rolex.

I don’t remember how we got on the subject of the time keeping commodity but, at some point, I was asked if I’d ever worn one, “know what it feels like to wear one?” “Nope.” There’s two of them now and they’re telling me how exuberayting it feels to wear a Rolex, “here,” he unclasped his watch and handed it to me, “put it on.” I put it around my wrist, clasped it, I felt the weight of it dangling from my arm, it was a bright and shiny, sparkly gold Rolex.

“Well? Incredible, right?” They’re both asking me stupid questions and one of them said “that’s what it feels like to wear 10 grand, isn’t it amazing?” I said “I can’t tell, it just feels like something I don’t want to scratch” as I carefully removed it from my wrist and handed it back to him. He clasped the watch back around his wrist, we continued talking about whatever we were talking about and that’s the end of it—that’s the only time I’ve had a Rolex (autocorrect) around my wrist. I looked at it, I felt it, I had plenty of time to experience something exuberayting, it never happened.

That’s the #story that plays in my mind whenever “Rolex” is mentioned or brought to my attention. As of last week, however, I now have two stories when that will play, the second one goes like this—check out these watches:

They’re worth more than the majority of brand new automobiles. The images are taken from a display glass window but they’re pretty clear images, do they look special to you, can you see their significance? Other than the price tag associated with them and the fact they all say Rolex, I don’t understand the desire. This is about the time I realized I probably wasn’t dressed appropriately to be scoping out these highly expensive jewelry displays so I waited until I got back to the Air B&B to zoom in on them.

Over 1/4 million dollars in Rolex watches on display and I finally figured out the significance behind these time keepers that literally appreciate in value over time.

Over 1/4 million dollars in Rolex watches on display and apparently they’re so unique that not.a.single.one of the highly sought after, time keeping devices, valued between 7k and 55k shall maintain the proper time, date or day.

Monday • Tuesday