My brother-in-law, Tom, gave me an Apple Watch Series 5. Tom is a techie kind of guy. He once worked at an Apple Genius Bar and got a promotion for thinking on the job. I once worked at a bar and was fired for drinking on the job.
When Tom bought the Series 6 Apple Watch, he graciously gave me his Series 5. He has done this for me before with other gadgets, which is why I have eight different iPhones in my desk drawer.
I called Tom and admitted that his gift was just too overwhelming for me.
“Come on, Dick. You just think you are out of your league. Relax,” he said. “The key is not to be intimidated. That’s the problem others have had.”
“Tom, that is exactly the same advice you gave me when I married your sister.”
He told me he would walk me through whatever issue I was having. The watch performs thousands of functions, but one of the first things you have to do is pick a face for it. There are dozens of different options to choose from. For example, there is one face that encourages you to breathe mindfully, and another called Solar, which displays the sun’s position in the sky like a sun dial that indicates the time. That is great for people who don’t have a watch … which you obviously do.
I chose a face called AG Digital, which looks like the dashboard on a 747. It’s hard to tell the time, but it does alert me if I’m experiencing headwinds. I was happy with my choice. I went to bed and awoke the next morning with a Mickey Mouse face (scared the heck out of Mary Ellen). I must have touched something on the settings in my sleep because there’s Mickey pointing to the time. It was hard to read, because I wasn’t totally sure if it was his feet or his hands I was supposed to look at. I didn’t know if it was 8:20 or 2:40. Of course, if I just looked at his ears, it was five minutes before 1 a.m.
I tried to call Tom but couldn’t reach him. That was odd, considering he has three cellphones, two iPads and a couple of Apple Watches. He called me back later that morning…
“Tom, I need to get Mickey off my watch face.”
“What have you tried?”
“I’ve tried everything. I even called Disney World.”
Tom helped me expunge the rat from my view, and now I toggle between the Artist watch face and the Astronomy watch face.
As I said, there are lots more choices, but I’m most comfortable being two-faced.
