Nobody likes to see a discarded, dirty Band Aid but especially not a wet, dirty Band-Aid in your shower. A wet, dirty Band-Aid floating by in a public pool or circling a drain at a water park splash pad would give anyone the skeevs. You’ve never had that nose scrunching, lip curling sight? Well, I guess not everyone grew up in Florida with a community pool. I digress…
I now sit writing this in my moleskine notebook. This is where I write my reflections and observations on this crazy life. Not a diary of course, because that would be killing all the street cred for my little black notebook. This is how I came to understand the wet, dirty Band-Aid in my shower.
One evening, my husband and I were at a friend’s house sitting around a fire in the backyard, drinking beer, as we often do. This night’s big activity was watching football. The one game of the year I tolerate for the commercials, the Super Bowl. After the rousing half-time show was over and winners were declared, boredom set in.
The next natural step for the evening was considering what drugs we would prefer to entertain ourselves with for the duration of the night. Everyone threw in contributions and opinions. We decided to split a little molly. As the drugs were starting to kick in and my beer buzz was in full swing, I asked my husband to toss me a beer from the cooler. He then decided to underhandedly toss me said beer as requested. I would love the excuse of “the light was in my eyes,” or “it was a bad throw,” but I don’t even think my hands attempted to rise. I caught it with my forehead! A noise resembling the sound a wooden bat makes hitting a home run rang in my ears as I laughed maniacally out of embarrassment. I’m sure the ecstasy may have helped… Witnesses let out a quiet gasp. I opened my beer and attempted to blow the whole thing off.
My husbands eye’s turned to even larger saucers as I felt the warm trickle down my forehead and he uttered sheepishly,” baby, no really, Baby, come here”. He escorted me to the bathroom to help tend to my wound.
He is a perpetual Boy Scout, always ready with his first-aid kit. When the light flicked on I was assaulted more by my reflection than I had been by the beer can itself. When my eyes finally focused on the silver dollar goose egg with a bleeding crescent moon shaped gash. Now that I was the Goth version of sailor moon, or the trailer trash incarnation of Harry Potter, of course my husband felt terrible.
We continued to have a decent night and I sported my limited edition, bright blue, Elsa Band-Aid. My husband suddenly remembered he’d made a few Super Bowl bets on some website. I was surprised, since that’s not something he’s usually interested in. A friend who is a borderline compulsive gambler, but definitely has a head for numbers persuaded him. My husband muttered something about already having a lucky night in his usual satirical tone while pulling out his phone to check his bets. For the second time in one night, his eyes were once again larger than saucers. Then came another: “baby, no really, Baby, come here. We won $20,000 dollars on a $200 bet!” I felt all the air leave me at once. I was going to faint and float at the same time. While wearing a Band-Aid on my forehead like some dorky white girl version of the rapper Nelly, we did indeed win $20,000.
As you can imagine, we celebrated our asses off.
Yes, that was amazing, but I still earned my right to guilt trip him. This resulted in a week of doctoring and minimal scaring. He would say things like “I can’t believe I’m so lucky to have you as a wife” AKA “I’m so glad you are not mad about this.” (All the while applying Neosporin and a new Band-Aid). The whole time I was thinking to myself: “you just won us $20,000 and I’m the clutsy one who can’t catch a beer.”
In one of our conversations while he was earning his first-aid badge once again, I was sitting on the counter in the bathroom with my head tilted to the good light. He mentioned, “while you are in the shower, rub off your Band-Aid once it’s wet and it won’t leave sticky residue or hurt when you take it off.” Mind blown… Mystery solved!
I finally understood why so many brow furrowing, nose scrunching, lip curling experiences of seeing a wet, dirty Band-Aids in my shower; he wasn’t just an accidentally gross human who leaves wet, dirty Band-Aids in the shower. There was, behold, a purpose! It was a reasonable train of thought, I suppose. Something that had lodged itself in my craw for almost a decade had been explained. But let’s be serious, for $20,000 you can leave your dirty Band-Aid on my plate if you want. The moral being, living with humans is hard, so find one that will laugh with you, doctor you, and win you $20,000.
To my loving Husband.
About the Creator
Mandy Gilmartin
I’m Mandy, pretty much your average mediocre white girl with bad luck and good timing.
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