Today I needed to apply a band-aid to my arm. With a sigh, I leaned into the mirror to plant the adhesive strip to my skin and was reminded of a memory from my childhood. I was nine years old and I fell in front of my neighbors house, scraping my knee. Blood and gravel mixed together to form an ugly, painful sore. I knocked on Frank's door and waited anxiously for him to answer. As the door opened, my knee dangling in the air, Frank smiled and let me in. I sat down on the chair in his living room while he retrieved the band-aid and neosporin from his medicine cabinet. I remember thinking that band-aids were best applied by somebody else. There's something about pulling off those white plastic tabs by myself that always feels pathetic, seems to emphasize the fact that there's no one in the world to do it for me.