Nope, nothing to do with a near-accident. Fortunate to say I haven't had one of those (or the full kind) recently.

Let me tell you about my trip to the mall this afternoon.

It was supposed to be a short trip. Just picking up a CD from Family Christian Store & something from Smoothie King. The CD is Live the Life by Michael W. Smith. What can I say, except that I am in a timewarp. "Missing Person" is a very special song for me, by the way. It took almost 9 years, but I finally got it on CD. While I was in there, I ordered The World as Best as I Remember, Vol. 1 by Rich Mullins. They didn't have volume 2.

Upon leaving Family Christian Store, I realize that, hey, while I'm here, I'll go ahead and get a new dress watch: my old one bit the dust this morning. How so? Well, it started back on the Fourth of July, when my parents & I went to Houston for an Astros game. It was raining, and before the game even started, I check my watch (to verify how long it'd be until the park opened), and there was a mist underneath the crystal. It took until this past weekend, the same Saturday that Amanda & I went apartment hunting (the title of the previous entry), for me to find out how much it'd cost to get it fixed.

How much? Too much.

The removal of the crystal is not a thing easily done. And since there's water under the crystal, there's likely water in the mechanism itself. Water = corrosion, which will have to be cleaned or may have to be replaced. What's more, it is (or was) waterproof, so before it can be called "done", it would have to go under waterproofing tests again. $125 to repair a $70 watch. Ain't happening.

The final straw was this morning, when I checked the time on my wrist after I got to work, only to find it was 12 AM. (After I got back from this Esplanade escapade, it was 12:06 AM.)

So, I decided to go ahead and see about the watch today, since I was in the mall already. From Family Christian Store, I went to what reminded me of the Sunglasses hut (not the kiosk variety), only to see that the watches were very poorly displayed: I had to stoop and crane my neck to see the faces of the Fossils (the brand I'd more-or-less decided on to replace the busted Armitron). I told the man I might come back, and then went to the Dillard's Mens store. Up & down the escalator twice, only to find out in the cologne department that men's watches are in the jewelry department in the main store, on the other side of the mall, next to Family Christian Store.

Mind you, I'm still sort of on-the-clock at the office.

Back to Dillard's, got a $85 Fossil, not as heavy as the Armitron, stopped in at Family Christian Store again because I realized I'd forgotten about a CD I've meant to pick up for the last 2 years: Shawn McDonald's first CD, whose name escapes me because the disc itself is in the car.

And all this time, I'm forgetting the one thing I really need: a new pair of glasses from LensCrafters.

Yep, and you girls wonder why guys are afraid of malls.

-KIE