My mama told me you better shop around

I don’t watch commercials.  Or read magazine ads.  Except when Husband forces me to appreciate marketing genius because ”I’ve just got to see this [insert catchy ad]“.  Gear guides are tricky.  They act like articles, but are really just the author’s effort to lure me into buying something I don’t need and/or can’t fit into my microscopic urban dwelling.  Something they received for free from the marketing geniuses.  [Attention marketing geniuses: I am for sale].   

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As I browsed through the winter edition of Adventura Magazine I came across this little gem.  The SportCount Chrono 100.  I need it.  NEED.  I swim laps in a 25 metre pool.  That means I swim a lot of laps but I don’t go very far.  I have great difficulty remembering if I’m on #32 or #23.  I can’t even keep track of ten hill repeats without repeatedly asking the unlucky people around me, what hill repeat was that?  This little counter fits on your finger, so at the end of every lap you just click with your thumb and flip turn on your way.  No fussing with a watch on your wrist, clumsily trying to find the right button and inadvertently setting the timer to go off every 30 seconds, thus repeatedly freaking out the white hairs breaststroking -while carefully keeping their makeup and permed styles intact- in the slow lane next to you. 

 
For the data geeks (me, me!) this little gizmo provides slowest, faster, average, and total lap times and the lap count.  All for only $40US (cheaper models come with fewer whistles, but the same number of bells), which is a relative bargain compared to gadgets like Garmin.  My problem?  I can’t find a place to actually buy this gizmo in Canada, save for a website that seems a bit sketchy (never trust a rhyming site name) with a shipping charge almost equal to the value of the item and a ridiculously restrictive return policy, even for defective merchandise.  I’m just an old-fashioned girl who wants walk into a store and exit with my SportCount finger watch.  After having paid, of course.       

Title Reference: Smokey Robinson and The Miracles- Shop Around. From the album Hi … We’re the Miracles.  1960.