fob

As I encountered Maury near his front door, he was patting his pants pockets with a vexed expression.

“What’s the prob, Bob?” I said.

“Fob,” Maury replied.

“F.O.B.? Full of bother?”

“O bother, where art thou,” he said. “In this case, I am addressing my fob. My fob is not in my fob and I cannot find it. I had ordered a fob for my fob so I could find it in my fob, but they fobbed me.”

I paused. I blinked. I blinked again. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I think the chain of that has broken for me.”

“For me too, precisely,” Maury said.

“You ordered a fob… for the fob… that goes in your fob.”

“Now you have it,” Maury said. “I wish I did.”

“Well, let me make sure I have the links. Fob, as in a small pocket for a watch.…”

“The original sense, yes,” Maury said, and patted the little pocket in his jeans, what we commonly think of now as a change pocket, though its original use was to hold a pocket watch. The word fob may be related to a dialectal German word fuppe ‘pocket’.

“…and fob, as in a chain that attaches to a pocket watch…”

“The thing I ordered, yes,” Maury said. Chains for watches came to be called fob-chains by association with the pocket that the watch went into, and that was shortened to fob, executing a sort of metonymic transference, from the container to the retainer. A fob can also be a ribbon, and a fob can also come with a protective cover for the watch.

“…and fob, as in a thing that attaches to a fob and goes into a fob.”

“Such as the little device without which I am not getting into my building,” Maury said.

“Quite the thing that fob circles around the watch and then replaces it. A watch itself is not a fob, but any little decorative or functional thing that can attach to a fob-chain and go into or hang from a pocket can be called a fob. It’s a real fob, in the other sense.” I meant the sense of ‘cheat, trick’, which relates to the verb fob as in fob off, ‘swindle someone by substituting an inferior item’. This also comes from German, but is probably not related to the other fob – unless the connection is to a secret pocket, which it may be, but we don’t know.

“Well, as I said, they fobbed me,” Maury said. “They fobbed this off on me, to be precise.” He reached into a pocket and produced a very small chain with very small links – the sort of thing that, in a photograph with nothing else for scale, could look like a watch chain of the right size. As he held it up I could also see that the ring at the end was broken. “And it was sent FOB origin, which in their view means that once it was in the mail it was my problem.” He stuffed the fobbed-off fob into his fob pocket.

“That’s not quite right,” I said. “That just means that the liabilities for transporting the goods and for damage fall on you as soon as it’s shipped. It doesn’t mean they can send any old inferior product and it’s your problem once it’s in the mail.” For those unfamiliar with the term, FOB stands for free on board and is a shipping term designating where the responsibility for the goods passes from seller to buyer.

“I know,” Maury rumbled. “And I shall be addressing this through the e-commerce site. But FOB – first order of business– is to get into my FOB – forward operating base.” He continued patting his apparel. “Ah!” he said, pulling his handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his jacket. “At last, an FOB – flash of brilliance.” From within the folds of the handkerchief he pulled a small grey disc-like object. Then he reinserted the handkerchief in the pocket, its corners protruding jauntily. “Foppery has its tricks,” he said, and advanced to the door, fob in hand.