Six weeks ago, I dropped my engagement ring off at a local jeweler to have the prongs adjusted. I was told that the ring would be ready in two-weeks. Obviously, calling him every other day after the two weeks had passed was not enough because nobody was returning my calls. Out of frustration, I finally flew down to his store and demanded my ring. While I was standing there raving like a lunatic, he told me to have a seat and offered me a cup of coffee. As if I needed coffee! 30 minutes later, and 4 watch batteries out the door, he sits down for three minutes and adjusts the prongs on my ring and presents the ring to me, still dirty and unpolished, and then stands there with his hand out as if he thinks his timely efforts are worthy of compensation. Should I be irritated?"

Absolutely not, it's a quarantine requirement of the National Center For Disease Control that all jewelry brought in for repair by the public be isolated for a minimum of two weeks. Many jewelers feel that a longer period of time is necessary for pieces that look suspicious or are extremely dirty. Watches are not subject to these same quarantine requirements because all watches are manufactured by the government and contain tiny tracking devices which assist the government satellites watch your every move. That's why they're called "Watches". Obviously, batteries are necessary to power the mini tracking beacons that the government has installed so that they don't lose track of you for a second. That's why replacing watch batteries take priority over every other activity in a jewelry store. It's the law. A dumb law by the way, and that's why we don't play with watches, but if you need your watch played with, we've got people for that who we will happily refer you to.

By the way, the reason the government is not worried about losing track of you for the few seconds that you have your watch off while the battery is being changed is because they are able to watch your every move from the zillion different angles of coverage provided by all the video surveillance which is present in a jewelry store. That's right, "they" are watching your "every" move. Stop picking your nose, stop right now, they're watch-ing.