The strangest thing has happened to me over the last half year. I can’t seem to find a battery-operated watch that doesn’t lose time over night.
It’s so bizarre that even jewelers are stumped.
Back in late October/early November, I noticed that my year-old watch lost half an hour when I was either on a layover in Hong Kong or during my week in Shanghai. I didn’t think much of it because it just seemed like it was time for a new battery even though the watch wasn’t even a year old. I guessed it was always possible to get a dud battery.
So when I got back to Hong Kong after that week in Shanghai, I jumped at the chance to get a new battery when I saw a little stall in an outdoor market that advertised watch repairs and battery changes. My friend Rita stood over the repairman to make sure the battery went into the right watch and that I got my watch back. For HK$25, it was a steal. The same thing would cost US$15-25 where I lived (there’s 7.8 HKD to 1 USD).
I wish that were the end of the story. But it’s not.
A few weeks after returning to the US, my watch started losing time again. And it was again at night. My husband was sure it was due to a bad battery from Hong Kong. He figured I was ripped off in that outdoor market. I didn’t think so, but brought the watch to a jeweler and had it checked out anyway.
Sure enough, the battery was just fine. In fact, the jeweler raved about its condition. Score another for Hong Kong!
Maybe the watch just needed cleaning, the jeweler thought. So he gave it a good dusting inside and sent me on my way at no charge.
But the watch kept losing time. So I sent it back to the store where my husband bought it. They checked it and said it was fine. I received the same watch a week and a half later. But I had no confidence that the problem was fixed. And sure enough it wasn’t. Twenty minutes again in the middle of the night.
I sent the watch back to the store and received a new one of the same brand and type. Sure enough, a few weeks later it stopped working at night for 20 minutes.
You’d think something was wrong with my house, but this all started in Asia. The store ended up sending me another watch of another brand, but it, too, stopped working at night. And it wasn’t just at my house, but my mother’s, too.
We’re all stumped. I’ve returned the latest watch and am waiting to hear from the store. I might try a watch that requires winding. Who knows. Even an older watch that I’ve been using in between newer ones has been losing 20 minutes at night.
Maybe my qi is bad? I never believed much in Chinese medicine, but I’m at a loss here.
Have anything like this ever happened to you?
Oh my goodness, YES this has happened to me! I thought I was crazy! I had a watch that worked perfectly fine for the few years it was on the battery it came with. When it died, I had it replaced next door, and I noticed that every time I checked, it would be behind, and after half a day, it was an hour off! What’s going on? I’m so glad it’s not just me! This is baffling.