A tale of excellent customer service

I recently had a series of excellent customer service experiences with Swatch.

I bought a watch -- very brightly colored -- and after wearing it a little, decided that I needed that bright color to be green. The friendly Swatch employees -- so friendly that this must be a prerequisite in the hiring process -- helped me pick a much greener watch. Still brightly colored.

Yet, alas! For reasons unknown (but excess verdure suspected), this excellent watch stopped running. I took it back (to my 3rd store), and they tested the battery (fine), so they simply replaced the watch. This entire interaction took about 5 minutes.

So I'm on my third watch in as many weeks, but I like it. All my interactions at Swatch stores and kiosks across the continent were very easy and positive. Look at me digitally/virally promoting a brand I like social-mediated-ly. Thanks, Swatch!


This post's theme word is sidereal, "relating to the stars," or "measured with reference to the apparent motion of the stars." This timepiece marks sidereal time.

Autodidactic somnolent piano

My dream last night had a plot, extras, fantastic BBC-style baroque costuming and between-scenes costume changes, a soundtrack, comic relief, and a 9-meter flood which had the modern characters wrapping their electronics in floating plastic bubbles. Most of the characters were not modern, so they were worried only about the dogs and how this would affect the estate's tenant-farmers, as well as the sons' marriage prospects.

Plus I discovered that I can't teach myself to play the piano in a dream. No matter how many times I started, my brain didn't have enough details to teach me how to place my fingers properly. My brain did have enough detail to make me hear my fudged notes realistically.


This post's theme word is kludge, "a solution that, while inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together, succeeds in solving a specific problem or performing a particular task." My somnolent mind formed a hilarious kludge of an Austin novel.