I admire people who can fix things. Our society seems to reimburse more for fixing than preventing. Surgeons are among the top earners. It’s hard to come by someone who has the know-how and the tools to fix a clogged coronary artery or a brain bleed. In my corner of the earth, it’s just more of an inconvenience to find the fixer I need: a jeweler. So today, I battled it out myself.

In just the past week or so, I noticed that my beloved Garmin (Forerunner 35) watch wristband had a small tear in it. This was problematic. Over the past 15 months, that watch has become like an appendage for me. Something’s missing if I don’t have it on. It’s been immensely helpful in my running game, allowing me to track distance, pace (super helpful!), and heart rate. It also keeps track of time, calories burned, and minutes of exercise per week. Pretty cool. It was a gift from my husband for my 34th birthday and it’s one of my favorite things I own. On my long run this morning, I often noticed the breach in the wristband, a crevice in that beautiful mint green silicone band (makes you think of mint chocolate chip ice cream, no?). By this afternoon, the crevice had widened. I feared the entire portion of the band would peel away from the black square face of the watch, leaving me with a severely jeopardized extremity. Thankfully my package (surgical kit) arrived just in time from Amazon: a new band (same color), two mini screwdrivers, and a simple instruction sheet.

From the instructions, I realized I needed to proceed to scenario #3: the bulk/root of the band had pulled away from the watch face. Simple fix, I thought. Turns out the screwdrivers that came with the kit did not fit well with the screws in the watch. So, just removing the wrist band was a challenge. I got nowhere after several minutes of tinkering on the sofa. I got serious and went to the OR (the garage). My eyes roamed the shelves, looking for a screwdriver that would match the screws of the watch. No such luck from the tool kit boasting 20 different screwdrivers with accompanying bits of varying sizes (I couldn’t figure out how to swap them out). I looked up from the work bench where I was standing and saw some nameless tool that might work. A long metal piece like a pencil with a triangular tip. Voila! It fit perfectly. I was able to get the screws out of the watch. Little did I know, the hard part of surgery was ahead.

I could see that the new watch strap fit perfectly onto the actual watch piece. The only problem was that the screws didn’t fit. The holes in the wristband did not line up with the plastic holes on the watch face. There were two plastic pieces within the wristband that were blocking the way for the screws. In addition to this, trying to even hold the screws in my fingers was like trying to grab the wind. Aaahhh! My neck burned and my shoulders ached, eyes strained as I fumbled with the screws and wristband for 10-15 minutes, hunched over the work bench. Ironically, I listened to an audiobook as I did this – the title of the book: Quit. I gave up and decided to leave it out there for the time being. I’d let my husband figure it out once he got home.

When I went inside to put the old wristband away, I noticed among the packaging for the watch repair supplies a tiny plastic Ziploc bag containing several very small screws, smaller than the ones originally in my watch. I returned to the garage with my new found prize. With a little bit of wiggling, rearranging, and tampering of the watch band and my metal pencil tool and after grasping some wind for a little bit, I finally stabilized those two small screws and was able to work them into the holes of the new wristband. Bingo. The new portion of the wristband is a slightly darker green than the original mint green of the other half of the band. But, it’ll do. I’m not going through that fiasco of changing the wristband again unless absolutely necessary.

On a rainy afternoon, I saved my Garmin. I avoided a trip to the jeweler and subsequent week without my beloved Garmin. A few hours post-op, she’s recovering well.

To all the fixers out there, you earn your pay! ~