What's Your Watch?

There is no street like Canal Street.

I grew up with a Canal Street. It, too, has it's hawkers, and store fronts and the smells you don't find anywhere else. My Canal Street is built over a huge pumping system, to keep New Orleans clean and dry.

It forgot how to work during Katrina... but, I digress.

You can find stuff you don't need on Canal Street....some of it is even purchased though legal markets. Clothes, records, DVD's, hats, pipes of all sorts, plumbing supplies, keys made, food from carts...I buy the dogs a hot dog every day from the same guy, he gives me a deal..two dogs with no bun for a buck. Then, you have the hucksters...the guys with the black bags under the tables who sell things that..ummm, fell off the back of a truck, shall we say.

I first ran into one of these on my trip to New York last March. A nice young man offered to sell me a Coach bag at a very low price. It was a fabric bag, though, and I asked if he had one in leather. He looked at me as if I were mad. "Lady, this is a COACH bag!" "Yes, I know...but, I like leather." He dropped the deal, and pushed me on my way. To be honest, I'm too honest to have concluded the deal... and, it wasn't my style.

There are big black bags everywhere. Kate Spade, Coach, Gucci. Men with more gold than Ft Knox are not even pretending to hide the fact they have hidden goods. Bootlegged copies of new films sit in the open. That part of me that is totally against bootlegging wants to run over and stomp on them... the outlined shape of a gun somehow stops me in my zeal.

I'm stopped on the corner by crowds and three men with watches.

"Whatchu wearing my sweet thang?"

"Just a watch." I'm not bright sometimes.

"Don't chu want a good watch? A Rolex?" He pushes up his sleeve and there are at least fourteen watches on his arm. I'm sure one has arm hair not his own caught in the wrist band.

"No, thank you." I'm nothing if not polite, "This one is just fine. I have a hard time with watches." I settle in to tell the tale. "I usually wear my old Seiko...it's a windup watch, and keeps great time. It's gold, I've had it forever. I tend to burn out batteries...so, I use it or my granddad's pocket watch. I need to get it repaired, though. The Seiko was in the shop, and I needed a watch this past summer, so, I was in TJ Maxx... don't you love TJ Maxx? Anyway, I was in TJ Maxx, and I found this great Kenneth Cole man's watch for slim men, I guess... it's very small, see? I usually don't like silver watches, but, it was marked down from $300 to $20. What a deal! Plus, the battery lasted four months before I replaced it. That is amazing for me. I see no reason to buy another watch when this one works a charm."

I smile.

Stunned faces surround me.

"Man, girl.... you do some talking. Sheet. You always do like dat? Sheet. How white ARE you?"

I thought about it. "So white you could put peanut butter and jelly on me and have a brown bag lunch, I suppose."

Heads shook and they laughed. "Now, that's white. Somebody get this woman a coke or somthin'...she gots to be parched after all that."

We all had a coke and talked about watches. They looked at my Kenneth Cole, and said it was a good watch.

Afterwards, the dogs and I moved on.

I like Canal Street. Next time, though, I'll walk on the other side...I promised I wouldn't block their corner again. I'm bad for business.