Actually, it's not old, I am old, but the watch was bought less than 20 years ago when watches were thin and didn't have devices that told you how deep you were under water or how many metres to the putting surface. It told the day and date, both of which were wrong, but it kept correct time and fitted comfortably on my wrist, even if, in recent years, it was inclined to migrate towards the elbow.

[Come behind these brackets, because I want to digress for a minute. You know how in many novels, the hero is able to read emotions in the faces of those he meets. It's easy enough to read anger or distress, I suppose, but being able to read a look that indicates hatred or greed or jealousy seems to be a talent required of fictional characters. Some authors even allow the eyes to be read, so the hero knows he is being pitied, told a lie, or regarded as inconsequential.

Here is an example of what I mean from a 2014 novel^*: ''I look to her pale face, and I know that in her beautiful head, there are no doubts.'' How can he do that? All he has to go on is paleness of face and beauty of head.

Have I been going through life like someone who has never learnt to read, not knowing when people are mad at me or laughing at me, when people are happy or sad or offended?

I blame youthful training in physics and mathematics, disciplines that require either theoretical exactness or accurate measurement. Or maybe, it's just a man thing. You can close the brackets now.]

So this lady in the fancy jewellery store looked at me in a way that a novelist might have been able to interpret as either pity at my backwardness or sadness for what happens to people when they grow old, or maybe just annoyance at a doddering old fogey taking up her time. Because, not only was this watch ancient, it was of a kind for which they do not make watchbands any more.

Apparently, modern bands are attached differently or have some special technology that means they can be used only with watches made since 2000. More likely, she felt that using one of the bands in the collection in her shop would be like dressing a beggar in ermine.

There was, however, a Mister Minit booth up the street, she said, and they might be able to help. I imagine that if she were a character in a novel, she would have read embarrassment and shame in my face, and a determination to never again go into a shop that sells expensive things.

This attitude is common to most of the mainstream shops in our malls. I feel sure that there must be an opening in the marketplace for outlets that are specifically geared to pensioners. Places where you could buy shoes that did not have pointy toes, and trousers that were not so thin that they showed off your spindly legs.

You could have a bottle shop that sold Reschs beer, and even a shop with dark curtains where you could buy plug tobacco. You might be able to get slide rules or typewriter ribbons, or books that were not about vampires or shades of grey.

I imagine economists might call this a boutique demographic. We are talking, after all, about people who spend up to 100 days every year on a cruise ship or pulling a luxury caravan around the coast at the back of the latest four-wheel-drive.

They may be doddery and wear hearing aids, but they are people who have converted youthful frugality into a bank balance that is being eyed by Mr Hockey.

Fortunately, these people are so numerous that no political party would dare suggest that any of their benefits might be interfered with. But the government is working on it, planning how to tap the platinum cards of future oldies by raising the pension age to 70.

For the record, I did visit the young girl at the booth suggested by her more snooty counterpart, and as she hammered and tweezered my watchband, she told me her father also had to have a few links taken off his. She smiled and was pleasant, so I think she was happy to see me.

*A Mad and Wonderful Thing by Mark Mulholland (Scribe)

Frank O'Shea is a Canberra writer