I’ve never really been accident prone.
In my lifetime, I’ve had only one trip to the hospital and one set of stitches (which left a sexy, masculine scar dangerously close to my sensitive eyes, ladies), despite two car accidents and a bus accident. I didn’t spend a lot of time falling off of my bike or recovering from archery accidents, so running out of band-aids was never really an issue. They just sat lonely in the closet, waiting for that fateful day when my new shoes would give me an unsightly blister, where they’d find a home plastered across the back of my heel. Perhaps people think that my adventures in painting and writing result in a lot of blood loss, but they won’t stop sending me band-aids. Seriously.
In my never-ending organizing adventures, I’ve discovered an alarming number of bandages – and not just your generic, fleshtoned ones. No, these are branded, fun bandages. Perhaps I never used them because when you slap Commander Geordi LaForge’s smiling face onto a medical implement, it somehow loses its inherent medical value by its very lack of seriousness. It might have all of the exact same chemical components as its generic counterpart, and I definitely trust the medical care of Starfleet, but I’m bleeding, and now is not the time or place, dammit.
That didn’t stop my mom from coming home with all kinds of interesting band-aids. I distinctly remember a set of Simpsons band-aids from the 1990s, as well as a perfectly preserved set of band-aids from The Tick animated series, which I still maintain. It would seem counterintuitive to base a band-aid design on a cartoon that depicts a parasitic arachnid, but that also didn’t stop Fox from lending The Tick’s likeness to a tube of lip balm, either.
Lately, however, Archie McPhee and Accoutrements have dominated my accidental bandage collection, and at least three separate people have noted my unusual love of bacon enough to send me a lovely tin pack of their bacon-themed bandages (complete with little, rubber pig). Am I that transparent, folks? Can’t you see that I go deeper than my love of bacon and cephalopods and Batman? I also play guitar poorly and my fondest wish is that I can solve the Rubik’s Cube that’s been taunting me since middle school. I’m a complex guy.
Still, another friend augmented my love of edible carnage by adding Accoutrement’s set of meat bandages to my collection, and my sister’s ever-eclectic and exciting gifts have incorporated both a set of cowboy bandages, as well as some Jesus bandages – which, ironically, would probably be refused by Christian Scientists. Would these be embraced by the nurse at the local CCD, or would they be regarded as sacrilege? IS the sarcasm that thick?
Fortunately, Accoutrements hasn’t yet combined their bacon bandages with their various bacon-scented products. Don’t get any ideas, guys. I try not to mix hunger and bloodshed whenever possible. My cannibalism is wildly unsuccessful as a result.
The great Shel Silverstein rhapsodized about the use of band-aids, and I’ve even come across a few people who seriously collect them – on purpose. My accidental collection is nothing compared to the thousands owned by 12-year old Cameron Hunnicutt – and let me just say that I’m very jealous of his Super Mario band-aids. Even at the height of my 1990s Nintendo hysteria, I never came across those. And I was hysterical – just not enough to get all banged up and warrant a Mario band-aid. I should have tried harder.
The association of a completely practical item (which has the unfortunate stigma of always being associated with pain) with a fun, interesting design has the curious psychological effect of somehow, some way reducing the physical pain felt. Of course, we’re also a culture that loves slapping designs onto every practical item within reach, pain associations or not
So, my accidental band-aid collection, culled from around my room, will take resident in my medicine cabinet – with an extra tin of bacon strips at the side of my art desk. I’ve been making a lot of paper crafts lately, and those Xacto blades tend to go wild once in a while. As a collection, they’re cheap enough to accumulate, and interesting to hunt down, but the best part is that I’ve never had to pay a cent or any of ‘em. Now THAT is smart collecting.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:09 PM
Collin,
On more then one occasion, I have been forced to wear a Dora The Explorer band aid, when that was all I could find in our main bathroom closet. Most embarassing when I left one on unnoticed till a client pointed it out. But thats what happens when our granddaughter dictates what she wants. And she seems to be half covered with them on her every visit. Should have bought Johnson&Johnson when her mother was young. The apple did not fall far from the tree.