As someone who exists in a near-constant state of existential panic at my impact (or lack-there-of) upon the world I live in, addressing my rampant consumerism is somewhat of a hobby.

I am so disgusted at my own desire to buy up to the minute clothes, shoes and accessories that I punish myself by languishing in outdated style in other areas of my life, and though the two somehow cancel each other out. This is most obvious with my insistence in using my mobile phone and electronic devices until they either reach their limits and pass peacefully, or I inevitably kill them through my own clumsiness.

The most recent victim of my lack of spatial awareness and dexterity was my Apple Watch Series 3.

Towards the end of 2018 I took my mother to the UK for a three-week holiday in London (remember when we could still do that). We had many adventures and misadventures (at one point I unwittingly walked my mother through a church garden full of junkies and used syringes in Paris) – but it was on a day-trip to Oxford that I succumbed to my own lack of grans and broke my Apple Watch.

I had resisted the Apple watch for a long time, just as I had resisted the iPhone before it. However, a confluence of events meant that I had a $200 voucher and $300 reimbursed by my employer – so essentially the watch cost me nothing. I had run out of reasons to resist.

Of course, when I got the watch, despite some issues with the colour of the band and frame (it’s called sand gold but is actually rose gold) I immediately fell in love with it, and I wanted to take the Watch with me when I travelled to the UK so I could monitor how much I would be walking etc. On the fateful day, however, I was rushing to make sure my mother and I wouldn’t miss our train to Oxford, when I fell elbows-first up a flight of concrete stairs and landed with my watch screen on the very rise of the step – watching it explode into a shower of glass. I was devastated.

I didn’t even think of claiming it on travel insurance, nor did I really believe that it would be covered.

I brought it to Apple in Australia and was quoted $350 for repairs – and told that in all likelihood that my watch would be replaced. This did not sit right with me, for a number of reasons, chief amongst them the waste of throwing out a perfectly functioning (albeit smashed) watch.

Next, I sat on this for some time – until I next travelled to Melbourne and had the opportunity to find an unofficial repairs place. I organised to have my watch fixed for $200 – which while not monumentally cheaper, did save the watch simply being junked. 12 months after I initially broke it – I got my watch back in working order, with minimal cost to the planet – though it is questionable whether throwing the watch out would have been more environmentally damaging than flying to Melbourne.

Addendum: since posting this I have killed the watch. Again.

Walking past my kitchen bench and getting maybe a little too into swishing my arms, the corner of the granite countertop connected with the screen… and that’s all she wrote.