Love at First Sight

I'm a person who loves all things I have, and pursue all things I love. I'm not someone who compromises, and perhaps, that's why I treasure everything I have; I am very careful with all my material possessions. Even though the G-Shock commercial and the product itself looks convincing enough to handle the harshest of elements, I treated it with respect and care. I followed the dos and don'ts written on the instruction manual strictly; washing it with warm water after every pool immersion, and prevented it from drops and knocks as I would with fragile glassware. However, being an active teenager, it proves to be impossible to keep up with the up-keeping. There were accidental drops on hard surfaces, and there were forgetful presses of the buttons underwater, but it proved itself time and again for surviving those ritual! (In case you're not aware, it is not a good practice to press on those functional buttons underwater. Be it digital or mechanical timepieces, operating them underwater risk water seepages into the case. This is exactly why some chronographs, a good example will be the Rolex Daytona, have lock screws on the buttons to prevent accidental operations underwater). Slowly, I gain confidence of the beating the G-Shock can take, and relaxed my handling with it.

At one point, I was almost like a ambassador! With a tinge of showing off to friends and classmates in school, I mimicked its commercial with different sports; hitting it like a baseball, kicking it like a football, throwing it like a basketball. While many of my audience were convinced to have one themselves, mine was gracefully aging; its skin starts to dry, flake and peel. The strap actually gave in at 3 year mark, and I replaced it with a 3rd party strap. Ironically, only when it has lost its youth to my torture, did I begin to look after it better. Perhaps the naked metal is telling me that it can no longer partner me in stunts like before or perhaps, I just wanted to keep my promise to my mom, to have it as long as its battery last; I treated it like I first got it, again...

Its display dims towards the 7th year, and it gasped its last breath when I activated its light one day. Unlike my first love (the Mickey Mouse watch), I had a mixed feeling of its passing; I was sad but at the same time, proud of my G-Shock. Sad because it has watched me over a good part of my adolescence, and yet proud that it has accomplished what it was made to do. I actually contemplated reviving it with fresh battery, but as a gratitude to its lifetime of faithful service, I decided to let it rest in peace for good.

My mom was equally proud of me for keeping my promise, she initiated to buy me another watch as a replacement. We went to 'Ho Seng Cheong Clocks & Watches' (yes, it was the only watch shop my family knew and trusted back then), to pick the next watch I wanted. With my experience of the G-Shock, I'm sure I wasn't even looking at the mechanical pieces then at all. A sand blasted metallic case and polished gold bezel with rubber straps caught my eyes, and I fell in love, at once...

Citizen Pro-master Windsurf D120 (1991)