About six months ago, my wife and a bunch of her friends decided they wanted to take
a Mexico trip.
Get all our families together.
Our kids all know each other, they’re about the same age.
It’s this whole Slavic community up here in Central Wisconsin.
And so, they planned out this trip.
Nowadays, with obviously with what’s going on the world probably wasn’t the best plan,
but we left on New Year’s Eve to spend six full days down in Cancun area, fly to Carmen
specifically.
And, it was beautiful.
I mean, the resort was nice.
It was all-inclusive, so all the food is taken care of.
Big deal when, you know, you got a bunch of kids and with all these other families.
Kids playing on the beach, they have all of their friends and they’re off doing all
the stuff.
Well, here on one of the last days.
Actually, the last full day that we have, I’m watching a whole bunch of kids that
are out snorkeling, about eight of them I think.
Yeah, there were eight because I remember I had to get eight snorkeling pieces gear
right back to the shop.
Now, my wife had been borrowing my watch because she went out into the water and she’s like,
“Hey, I don’t have a phone with me, I want to be able to track the time.”
I was going to simply get all the snorkeling gear take it back and I’m like, “Hey,
hon.
Can you give me back my watch?”
And that’s when tragedy struck.
Now, the watch we’re talking about here is my Monta Oceanking.
This is a beautiful dive watch.
You got 40mm across, it has the date right there at the bottom.
The one I had was the light blue limited edition.
I don’t think they make it anymore.
They’ve got some – I mean, they’ve got all these other colors that are great, but
I really did like having this one that was unique.
You know, just simply the look of the watch, it doesn’t look anything like a Rolex.
It’s incredibly functional down to a thousand feet.
The band is incredibly comfortable.
This was a watch I took with me on the vacation because I wanted to have more memories with
it.
It was something that, you know, I’ve had this watch for a couple of years.
I’ve worn it quite a bit, but I want to attach this to, yeah, spending time on the
beach with my family down in Mexico.
Well, the problem is that when I took the watch from my wife, I did not put it right
back on my wrist.
That was my number one mistake.
No, I put it into my pocket, my swim trunk pocket, which had proven earlier on the trip
– and I’ll talk about that because I’d already lost some things falling out of that
pocket, but, no, I did not learn.
I had four pieces of snorkel gear on each hand and then, I had to quickly cover a half
mile to get – I’m running down the beach to get all these equipment back to where it
needs to be.
And I did that, you know, half a mile probably well under, you know, five minutes.
So, I made it in time.
Checked the gear in, washed it, cleaned it.
I started making my way back, took a seat, hanging out probably, I don’t know, 20 minutes,
30 minutes and then I realized when I go to check the time, I do not have my watch.
And so, I’m thinking, “Okay, my wife still have it?
Did I lay it around?
So, and I quickly realized I put that in my pocket and it is now gone.
Now, my first thought is I am a complete dumbass because here’s the thing.
The first day we were there in Mexico, I lost my phone on the beach.
I found it within three hours.
Luckily, there was a guy working there that put it to the side.
He saw, you know, just right there on the sand.
And that’s what threw me off is usually when you drop something, you hear it, but
when you’re running or you’re moving around on sand, you don’t hear it.
And these swim trunks that I was wearing, they did not have secured pockets, big open
pockets.
I mean, it was just I had a history of losing things out of these swim trunks.
And I apparently did not learn from my lessons and I’m there realizing, I’m on a public
beach, I covered half a mile running back and forth and you know what?
If I were to find a random watch with different hotels, how in the world is this ever going
to find its way back to me?
Now, to my family’s credit, they immediately as soon as they found out I was missing my
watch, my daughter and her friend got up, my son was out there, my wife was out there.
Even my little daughters, they’re out there looking combing the beach looking for dad’s
watch.
Probably for the next 15 to 20 minutes we went up and down from the different places.
But, you know, at that point it had been probably 45 minutes since the watch had gone missing.
And here’s the thing is it’s a really nice watch, it was there drop on the sand,
if it did get buried by a wave, it most likely got picked up by somebody, who even if they
turned it in, what are the chances they turned it into the right hotel and then what are
the chances that it’s going to make it to security who’s going to make it, you know,
eventually find me?
Long story short, we never found the watch.
I talked to a number of people working there, no one had seen it or heard of anyone turning
in a watch.
I went to the front desk to file a report with security, got them pictures and all the
other details, which I was able to get off the web.
But, the reality is I don’t ever expect to see that watch again.
Sadly, I mean, it was a great watch, I really liked it.
You know, that being said, I hope that whoever the new owner is, whenever, you know, guys
walking around with that watch that he enjoys it because it was a good one.
[0:04:52] Now, the point of this video is not to have
a pity party for Antonio because I’ve got a lot of great watches and to be honest, that
dive watch was not my favorite dive watch.
I actually that would go to my Rolex Yacht-Master and to the Black Bay 58 here I’ve got from
Tudor.
Those two are my favorites.
That being said, that one was right up there easily in my top five.
It had meaning to me because I knew the owners.
I bought it with my own money.
It was not a cheap watch.
And I was surprised at how upset I was about losing this and how frustrated I was with
especially something that could be so easily replaced.
And that’s what I want to talk about and I’d love to hear from some of you guys down
in the comments that have gone through this.
It’s very interesting how something that honestly we’ve paid already for, it’s
not like it cost me anything out of pocket.
That money was already gone, you know, a couple of years ago, but yet, it had such a negative
effect on my mood.
I felt the rest of the day I was sulking and I had went off by myself just did some work.
I didn’t want to be around my kids.
My wife was smart enough because she knows I get into these moods sometimes and she just
leaves me alone.
She knows that, hey, I just want to be left alone.
But, I realized that, man, like I became really attached to something that doesn’t love
me back.
Everything I felt for that watch was one direction.
You know, we talk about watches, we talk about nice clothing, we talk about shoes.
There were all types of things here on this channel, but I just find it so interesting
how I got wrapped around that and it really ruined the last day of my vacation.
Now, at the end of the day, I’m very grateful because if I was going to lose a watch, you
know, I’m happy I didn’t lose my Rolex, I didn’t lose my Tudor.
And, you know, I’m grateful that no one got sick on our trip.
Nobody had an injury.
Nobody was seriously hurt.
You know, there’s always worst things that can happen and that one tragedy.
But, it is interesting how your mind can get wrap around that, how even something that
shouldn’t really matter bothers us and affects us in that negative way.
And I think the thing that really helped me I think by that night is getting myself out
of that situation just, you know, getting moving along.
But, you know, it was still, you know, go look for time multiple times and, again, I
don’t see my watch just kept reminding me, that was probably the toughest part is the
habit of checking time and then not having the watch there.
But, you know, I just kept going back thinking, I got to be grateful for what I have.
Here I am in Mexico on a vacation when I know there are people that can’t afford this.
I’m able to spend time with my kids when I know people are separated from their kids
out there.
I’m able just to, you know, be in a situation that, you know, a lot of people would, yeah,
they’d give up a lot for it.
Another couple of practical lessons I took from this after talking with my friend, Aaron
Marino, you know you guys know we probably talk every day about just issues in life.
And this was one of the first times in a long time that I’ve been complaining and kind
of bitching about something.
And he’s like, “Okay, dumbass, you know, what you learned right here is, one, you shouldn’t,
you know, you should have learned when you lost your phone that do not trust those pants.
You know, you need to get some new swim trunks that have zippers on them because you will
lose things.”
And he also pointed out, you know, you were in this environment in which you don’t have
your systems, you don’t have things set up, you were watching out for all of these
kids.
I mean, there were a lot of situations.
I think for me what was frustrating me the most is am I that, you know, loose?
Is there something going on with me that I cannot track?
Usually, I’m pretty good about tracking things.
Feeling like I have control, feeling like I have things organized and I’m top of things.
And then, just to keep losing things like this, it was like, man, I, you know, something
wrong with me mentally, but you know, it’s like I think it was just the situation.
And, again, that’s what having great friends, I mean, my family, they spent – they were
out there after I left still going up and down the beach probably for a good 30 minutes
to an hour trying to find this watch.
And, you know, I’m just grateful that I have people that care about me, they’re
worried about me that, you know, just simply want to make sure that, you know, I am taken
care of.
Now, gents, I want to have fun with this video, so down in the comments below, I want to hear
about some times that you lost something, that you broke something and you’re just
like, oh, my gosh.
I mean, I’ve got quite a few other stories about this.
But, I love hearing from you guys.
And I will be giving away some challenge coins.
As you guys know I’ve got these amazing challenge coins here at Real Men Real Style
that I love to send out to our best supporters, the guys that leave great comments, to the
people that support our channel that share it with other men that when they find this,
you can find a place that sometimes, yes, in this video, I’m just commiserating with
you guys talking about, you know, this thing that I know many of you guys have gone through.
And at the end of the day, I’m like, you know what?
I got to pay homage to this watch because I’ll never see it again.
That being said, it will at least pop up in one more video and maybe live on and inspire
somebody maybe to buy the right type of swim trunks.
I swear I’m going to go out there and find these swim trunks that have zippers and double
buttons because I am tired of losing things.
All right, gents.
So, what video to watch next?
Well, let’s check out my entire watch collection.
I was talking about all the watches I have in my collection.
This video, I think it’s pretty up-to-date.
I don’t think I bought really too many watches since I went crazy and bought a whole bunch
in a short amount of time.
You can see my entire collection right here, guys.
I break it out.
It’s a little bit of a longer video, but you get to see the Monta.
I actually own a couple Montas and all the other watches in my collection right here.
Boom, click it, it’s good.
[0:09:56] End of audio