My Forking Timex

A Weekender that took a licking, and keeps on ticking.

Timex Unisex T2N647 Weekender 38mm.

This Christmas, my Timex Weekender turns 10 years old. A lot has happened in that decade, and this loud guy is still ticking after taking a licking.

In 2013, I was newly married and my wife asked me for a suggestion as to what my in-laws could get me, and I suggested A Timex Weekender watch with an Olive strap. It was on sale for $20.

For whatever reason, I wanted to wear a watch again as the novelty of having a smartphone as your timekeeper was wearing off, and this was before so-called “smartwatches” became popular a few years later. In fact, I had just cancelled my smartphone data plan!

I had always liked field watches (though now, I prefer divers), and this seemed like a perfect gift suggestion: affordable, go everywhere, sufficiently water resistant for my purposes, and with Indiglo. Who doesn’t love Indiglo?

Nobody wants to ask their newly-minted in-laws for an expensive watch, except douchebags or rich people. And this was something I really wanted, a gift that would be appreciated, and appreciate it I did.

For the better part of the next decade, this was the only watch I owned and I wore it everywhere.

Front row seats to Inaugurations of Presidents? Check.

Television appearances? Check.

Weddings of friends? Check.

Yes, I tried to talk sense into OAN viewers for a spell. I stopped going on after they went Trumpy.

I wore it to work, and a horologically inclined colleague joked about my love of my “forking Timex.” (Forking being a substitute word for Fuck, not a tuning fork reference.) I stuck with this as my daily wear watch until said colleague gifted me and my colleagues a diver I treasure, but more on that in a future post.

As you can see, the watch bears a number of battle scars. This being a popular watch, one of the most popular in the world, in fact, I don’t remember how the dings and the scratches came about.

The second hand has never really lined up perfectly, but the watch keeps time. For Quartz analog movements in this price range, they never do, and I never really cared as long as the time was accurate, which it was. The loudness never really bothered me, except for sleeping.

As my twins, now aged six, started acquiring object permanence and focusing on their motor skills, this watch’s Indiglo was a big highlight. I can still hear my girls laughing as they pushed the crown again, and again, on our loveseat in our Alexandria condo just to see its blue hue.

They did it so much they killed the Indiglo on this watch, and on an all blue plastic Timex Expedition I bought during the Blues’ Stanley Cup run that got beat until death, RIP. (I should have bought this one! Still might.)

The strap, which I still have, is in great shape. Though, I’ve used other NATO straps on the watch for different occasions. And the battery change of the CR2016 battery on these watches is a breeze. Replacing the battery did not solve my Indiglo woes, and that’s just the price of having kids.

Timex appears to be replacing the Weekender, though not yet discontinuing it, with the new, somewhat pricier, Standard line of watches, which are much quieter. I have one—40th birthday!—and like those, too.

But this watch will always have a place in my heart, being the little Timex that could, as it helped restore a love of watches that I lost, temporarily, during the advent of the smartphone.

A perfect Christmas gift that I cherish ten years later.

—Casual Time #5 by Jim Swift

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