A Personal Account – Thursday, October 3rd, at Independent Jewellers.
Nick and I ventured down to Independent Jewellers for 10:00am, Thursday, not planning to purchase anything, but anxious to see what great deals awaited the lucky watch enthusiasts (with money). Upon arriving at the corner of Notre Dame and Isabel, we managed to find parking in the overflow area at the PartSource across the street. I was surprised the Police Cadets were not on duty directing traffic.
Once inside, we clawed and fought our way into the back watch area and very shortly met up with “The Doc” who had obviously been there awhile as small amounts of dried drool was noticed on the glass counter around him. We inspected a number of watches including a Hamilton Automatic Kahki and two or three TAG Heuer Carrera’s.
Meanwhile, I decided to hunt for a ladies TAG Heuer Link for my wife, which she had wanted for the past year. To my surprise and delight, the exact model was sitting there on sale so after a few tense minutes of trying to catch the eye of one of the salespeople, the watch was snagged and in my possession.
For the uninitiated, in this sale possession is nine tenths of the law! If you put an item down it could and likely will be snagged up by some other watch crazed shopper just as quickly. So in one hand I have the watch and in the other I am phoning my wife to verify the model she wanted. Alas, she wants to leave work and examine this beauty herself to make sure it is the correct one, so I now have to babysit it for 20 minutes more pending her arrival.
Meanwhile, I casually start looking at some Carrera’s and spot a steel one with a steel bracelet that I had admired last winter while vacationing in Orlando. Unbeknownst to me, The Doc is also admiring the same piece further down the counter! With great stealth I frantically tried to get the eye of the salesperson who was Windexing the glass counter top near The Doc, but I must have given away my hand as in my horror the salesperson was reaching into the case and after passing over several other models his hand grasped the steel Carrera – my Carrera! I made several attempts to dissuade The Doc of his error in contemplating this purchase, including the fact that “he has a special one on the way and one on order.” I even suggested that I drooled on it by accident, but to no avail as he had his credit card out faster than a good morning kiss. I was tempted to get Jonathan over to do an intervention, but he was too busy with customers.
I slowly felt a curtain of despair come over me until I spotted the same watch, but with rose gold hands and numbers, a crocodile strap and a deployment clasp. For me, it was one of the best watches I had seen that day and I had to have it (you all know the feeling, right?). Meanwhile my wife arrives, loves her watch, buys it, and of course felt sorry for me so soon my Carerra was secured as well.
So all in all, a great experience Thursday morning at Independent Jewellers. Met a number of other Winnipeg Watch Enthusiast members there as well. The Doc got the watch he wanted and so did my wife and I. The Staff there are great and did an exceptional job of managing the demands of many watch crazed enthusiasts.
- Rick.
