Harmony of the World (1984)

Charles Baxter's first collection of stories, winner of the sixth AWP Award Series in Short Fiction, includes the title story, which appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1982, and closes with "The Crank", in which Robert, twice divorced and selling real estate in Minneapolis, starts taking calls from a stranger named Oscar who bets him money on football games to make him care about something. (Open Library)

Watches

Omega (unidentified model): In "The Crank", having shaken hands on a hundred-dollar bet that the Vikings will beat the Lions by fourteen, Robert forgets the game altogether and spends the Sunday driving back and forth on the freeways, half-heartedly looking for a jewelry store that could repair his Omega, a gift from his ex-wife for one of their anniversaries. He gets home in time to hear that the Vikings lost and to pay the crank, who points out that there are no jewelers on the freeways. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: By Sunday Robert had forgotten about the game and was driving back and forth on the freeways, half-heartedly looking for a jewelry store where he could get his Omega watch repaired. His ex-wife had given him the watch for one of their anniversaries. (Charles Baxter, Harmony of the World, scan cataloged as University of Missouri Press, 1984, p. 144, in "The Crank", which begins on p. 136 according to the contents page; Internet Archive scan OCR)