Cartier and I, while never close, go way back. At 17, I went on a trip to Israel to meet my girlfriend there. I mentioned this over a dinner with my mother and a very grand friend of hers. When he heard I was planning this adventure, he took off his watch and handed it to me, saying, “Here, have this; you can always pawn it if you need cash. Bring it back.” To her eternal credit, my mother seemed to think this was perfectly normal. So it came to be that I trudged around for several weeks with a gold mechanical Cartier Tank watch, red crocodile strap, déployant clasp, sapphire crown and all. By the time I got there, my girlfriend had found someone else. I did bring the watch back.
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