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Did You Remember the Milk, and Also That You Must Die?
I have long labored under an affliction I call persistent nostalgia. It’s not debilitating like a medical condition, but it’s something I have to overcome on a regular basis. I have attachments to things just because they exist, and because I know about them. I long for things, oblivious of other people’s lack of interest.
For instance, in junior high, I became obsessed with pocket watches. I’m sure I saw some old guy use one in a movie I saw as a kid in the early seventies, and thought it was the end-all, be-all of style. For my thirteenth birthday, I asked for, and got, a pocket watch.
Jeans (or dungarees, as my parents called them) have a coin pocket on the right side, in the opening of the regular pocket. That coin pocket is perfect size for a pocket watch. (For all I know, it was originally intended for pocket watches for people who didn’t wear vests.)
I used it for a couple of years, with a chain attached to my belt loop. It was dorky and weird, but I liked it.
When that phase passed, I kept the pocket watch in a box of some kind and toted it with from place to place over the years.
