Hell Has Frozen Over...

I received a call, this past Saturday, from the store where I had brought in my watch for repairs (...eight weeks ago!) saying that: "...your Breitling vatch is retty, und you may hol [holen is "to get" in German] your vatch at any time!" The strange thing about it is that I was standing in front of that very same store, at almost precisely the moment they left the message on our answering machine...looking at my next watch (see one post below) in the store window.

Weird!

Now, if you'll remember, my warranty expired at the end of September, so I was expecting this repair to be very costly. For that reason, I first made my way to the UBS bank machine to withdraw a wad of money, and then I walked across Marktplatz to the watch store.

The store opens at 13:30 on Mondays, and I apparently arrived at 13:29 because the store's front door was locked when I tugged on it, and a (security?) man was standing there looking at me and holding up one finger; not the middle one, I'm happy to report.

So...I waited the mandatory one minute, walked in, and handed a lady my claim check. She disappeared behind a wall for a minute and then came out with my watch (which she was polishing with a cloth). I put it on and tried out the stopwatch to make sure it worked (it did!). Then, the lady showed me that my Breitling book had been stamped verifying the "official" repair and...

...ADVISED ME THAT THERE WAS NO CHARGE BECAUSE BREITLING DECIDED THAT THE REPAIR WOULD BE COVERED BY THE WARRANTY EVEN THOUGH MY WARRANTY HAD EXPIRED!!!!

I thanked her, and I got the hell outta' there before she changed her mind!

THE SWISS GAVE ME SOMETHING FOR FREE!!!!!!

It's kind of strange, but even though it was warm and sunny outside...

...I slipped on a patch of ice on my way out of the store!