My SWAT Watch

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2007.

If you ever find yourself in a hostage situation, feel free to call me, or send me an e-mail. I can handle it: I have a SWAT watch.

That’s right. Reporter Clark Kent was secretly Superman, and Columnist W. Bruce Cameron is secretly the kind of guy who can wear a watch that’s an exact duplicate of the one official SWAT team members wear in that movie about them.

With this watch, there are a lot of things that I can do that SWAT guys do, like, well, synchronize watches. There is also a time function — a SWAT time function, I might add, so if I am doing Special Weapons and Tactics, I’ll know when I’m doing them. I can also set the date, which right now is on July 25 so that if I am ever captured by SWAT enemies, they’ll be confused and maybe let me go because they weren’t supposed to kidnap me in July.

Three buttons stick out of the watch. The top button sets time and date, the bottom button sets ultra-top-secret SWAT functions that I’ll reveal in a second, and the middle button separates the other two buttons.

With a push of the bottom button, my watch becomes a compass. This means I can always tell which way is north, even if I don’t know what lies in that direction except maybe polar bears.

SWAT Leader: Let’s storm the bad guy’s place on July 25. Which way is north?

Bruce (consulting SWAT watch): That way!

SWAT Leader: Thank heavens you’re here — I thought it was this way!

When I push the button again, I get an altimeter, so I know how far above sea level I’m standing.

Hostage taker: Ha ha, Bruce, we’ve captured you and can now do our evil plan.

Hostage taker No. 2: Ha ha.

Bruce: (pushing button) Oh, yeah? Look at this!

Hostage taker: It’s an altimeter!

Hostage taker No. 2: We’re doomed!

I suppose I can also tell how many meters I’m under sea level, though I’ve never tried this.

The watch is rated to a depth of 100 meters, which is apparently where the SWAT team does some of its best work. I’ll probably go down there this summer, just to hang around with my fellow SWAT guys, maybe see some seals, or some SEALs.

Another push of the lower button, and I have a thermometer right on my wrist! Oddly, no matter how cold I feel, it is always 98.6 outside.

Want to know what the weather is? When I push the button again, I get a barometer.

Man: Wow, it is really raining.

Me: Actually, if you look on my barometer, you’ll see that it isn’t.

Man: My mistake! Are you one of those SWAT guys?

Me: That’s top secret, but yes.

The function I use the most is the alarm, which emits a high-pitched beep guaranteed to intimidate even the most hardened of criminals. I’d rather not use it at all, but I can’t figure out how to make the darn thing stop. Every evening at 8:30 p.m. (or, as we say in the SWAT business, 20:30 hours) it starts beeping, which draws a lot of hostile stares from people trying to watch the movie, even though any hardened criminals in the theater are being intimidated — and you’d think they’d be grateful for that.

There’s also a heart-monitor function. When I strap a special transmitter around my chest, it feels like I’m wearing a rubber bra. The bra transmits a signal to my watch, telling it that my pulse rate is going up because the strap is too tight and I can’t breathe. When I look at the watch, my pulse rate is displayed as a series of numbers, though they are all zeroes, which I suppose might be considered bad news. Either the heart monitor has stopped working, or I have.

I’ve decided not to use this function because I don’t know how the SWAT guys would react to one of their team members coming to a hostage crisis wearing a bra.

I wear the watch, though — it does a good job of telling the time, as soon as I figure out how to set it!

To write Bruce Cameron, visit his website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at http://www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.