The Man with the Watch

Note to readers: The following Roger Simon column was first published in April 1997.
   
SAN FRANCISCO -- The man next to me on the airplane is wearing a $30,000 wristwatch. I know this because he tells me so.
   
"Thirty-thousand dollars," he says. "Patek Phillipe."
   
I respond to this the way I respond to most things that strangers tell me on airplanes. Hmmm, I say.
   
He is oddly encouraged by this. "Don't get me wrong," he says. "I'd buy American if I could. But you can't get an American wind-up watch. Not any more."
   
Why anyone would want a $30,000 wristwatch is beyond me. But why anyone would want a $30,000 wristwatch solely because it has to be wound each morning is, I think, beyond reason.
   
The man tells me he runs a high-tech company in Silicon Valley, and then he looks at my wristwatch.
   
My wristwatch is made by Swatch. It cost me $19.95 when I bought it 11 years ago. Since then, I have put in two new batteries and put on three new watchbands. I don't remember how much they cost, but I think it was considerably less than $30,000.
   
"You want to know something?" the man asks.
   
Hmmm, I say.
   
"Your watch keeps better time than my watch," he says. "What do you say to that?"
   
I can think of many things to say to that, including "get a life," but instead I just say, Hmmm.
   
The man with the watch first began this conversation by trying to get me to trade seats with his friend who is sitting in seat 6A. I am sitting in seat 1B. Whenever I can, I use my frequent flyer miles to upgrade my ticket to first class. This is because airlines today treat people in first class like they used to treat people in coach and they treat people in coach like they used to treat cattle.
  
 "You want a window seat?" the watch guy says to me. "My friend will trade with you."
   
No thanks, I say.
   
"You like your seat?" he says.
   
Yes, I say.
  
"Something special about that seat?" he says.
   
Yes, I say. Every time I have flown in seat 1B, the plane has never crashed.
   
The watch guy finds this hysterically funny, which is my mistake. For the next five hours, from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, he talks to me.
   
"Do you know where American industry lost its edge?" he asks me.
   
I wanted to say: Yeah, when people started buying Swiss watches that cost more than some houses. But instead I say, Hmmm.
   
"When we gave away the consumer electronics business," he says. "American business invented the television set. We invented the video recorder. But go try and buy an American TV or VCR today. You can't. We gave the business away."
   
He starts explaining to me how America has become complacent again just because the Japanese economy has been in trouble due to a variety of banking problems.
   
"Those problems will be over in a year," he said. "Japan will be back, stronger than ever. You know our problem?"
   
I shake my head.
   
"We don't make things," he says. "You've got to make things. Japan has no natural resources, not much land to grow things on, and a small population. But they make things."
   
He starts to tell me about the things his company makes, which has something to do with spectroscopy, none of which I understand.
   
"I make things," he says.
   
But you buy your watches from Europe, I say, which is another big mistake because now I have set him off again.
   
"Europe is through," he says. "Europe is finished. Don't put any of your money in Europe. Does Europe make a single computer? Europe does not." Then he tells me that 50 percent of the parts in the plane we are flying on are computer parts.
   
He glances at his $30,000 watch and picks up one of those airplane phones. He dials, and he is the only person I have ever known who does not begin his conversation by saying, "Guess where I'm calling from?"
   
Instead, he says, "How's the market doing today?" He listens in silence and then shakes his head and says, "How much cash do I have left? I can't believe this! No, I haven't lost my nerve!"
   
I feel embarrassed listening to all this, but I can't help it. He hangs up that call and then he turns and looks over his shoulder and tries to call -- I am not making this up -- his friend in seat 6A.
   
But his friend in 6A is not picking up the phone for some reason, and the watch guy slams the phone back into the bulkhead.
   
I didn't know you could do that, I say.
   
"What?" he says. "Do what?"
   
I didn't know you could call from one plane seat to another, I say.
   
"Oh, yeah," he says. "Technology. It's wonderful."
   
Except that he did not actually get through to his friend, and it would probably have been easier to just step over me, walk back a few rows, and talk to his friend. But guys who wear $30,000 wristwatches don't do things like that. I guess.
   
When we land in San Francisco, the watch guy turns to me and says, "Your lucky seat worked again!" Then he gives me his business card. "When you go back to Washington, let me know what flight," he says. "Maybe I can sit next to you again. Wouldn't that be great?"
   
Hmmm, I say.
   
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