Things That Make No Sense to Me
Well, less and less actually makes sense to me these days, but here’s the nonsense du jour.
Yesterday I broke my expansion band while taking off my wristwatch. Okay, not a big deal, but it happened twice now, and I decided to buy a leather band. Off to the mall for this exciting purchase.
At one of those clever little island shops, I stopped to look over what was available and, while perusing the bands, my eye spotted a quite nice model, much like the one I owned but a larger face and easier to read.
I had expected to pay about ten bucks for a band and here was a new watch, including a black leather band, for $13.
Not earth-shaking news, I know
It’s made in China (what isn’t these days?) and has a quartz movement, so it’s as accurate as the most expensive Rolex, but the fact that you can buy a watch band and get a watch thrown in for another three bucks blows my mind. This seems to me to prove—far more than any diplomatic assurances—why we will never go to war with China over Taiwan.
Which is notable, if not seismic
Our former president injured a perfectly fine U.S.-China relationship over a unilateral and unexpected rise in tariffs. But a war? Oh, come now, lets not lose our heads.
Who would make our broadcasting equipment ($231B), computers ($146B), office machine parts ($90.8B), integrated circuits ($80.1B) and telephones ($62B), to say nothing of the sporty little watch that adorns my wrist at the moment.
Quite recently I wrote about the worrying possibility of a military escalation of the China-Taiwan confrontation, once in July and again in October. Our military-Industrial guys would dearly like to see that happen and are no doubt lobbying hard for it at the moment because they’re embarrassingly short of wars since we left Afghanistan.
Serious world conflict, saved by a wristwatch
Dare I say in the nick of time, or would that be a pun too far?
Image Credit: Getty Images