What I bought with my very first paycheck
After 30 years of keeping me fashionably late, my Golana watch has finally resigned. As if pining for a time when there were more hours in the day, it tells me it's brunchtime when people are heading back to their desks; it's ready to wine and dine when I should be hitting the hay. This tiny little watch - about the diameter of an Australian 5 cent piece - was the object of my desire for months, until I finally broke down and bought it with my very first paycheck: $A247. $247 was a lot to blow in one go, let alone on a watch. It felt like $1500 feels like now. I remember gazing at it through a plate glass window in Canberra, Australia, when I was 17 years old. The store, called Gold and Silver (I think), jutted out from a very desirable little enclave of shops called Centerpoint, overlooking a pedestrian plaza. It was an exclusive little mall, selling fancy clothes by Aussie fashion icons like Nadjee menswear, Cue, and probably the best frozen yoghurt fruit salad I