March 17 – “Bandaid Effectiveness Theory”

What is it about having a bandaid that makes your injury not hurt near as bad?  Injury.  Hmm.  That can be spelled several ways, you know.  When I was growing up it was always a bobo, pronounced correctly as boeboe, with a long o sound, just like the nickname of Galveston's former mayor.  Made it kind of hard to keep a straight face when I first faced Bobo Quiroga on a baseball field.  Not that it helped me hit him any better.  He struck me out just like he did everyone else with his knuckle curve ball.  I have no idea where the word originated.  I simply assumed that everyone knew what a bobo was.    But as I grew older and more worldly wise, and as I encountered people from strange and unusual cultures from the Far East (end of the Island) or from the Distant West (end of the Island), I began to realize that some people just didn't understand the bobo terminology of my youth.  At best they would look at me quizzically and say, "What?"  At worst they would hesitate for a brief moment, then burst into laughter at the hilarity of my socially unacceptable snafu.  Either way, I would be forced to go on the defensive to explain myself and the perfectly reasonable usage of the language.  Inevitably, often after my idiomatic (not idiotic, though at the time I might have declared otherwise) nemesis gathered himself back under control (read here, stopped laughing), I would finally get up enough gumption to throw a punch of my own, "Well, what do you call it?" only to be stopped in my tracks with a counterpunch like, "Everyone knows it's called a booboo."  With but a slight alteration the proper pronunciation had become butchered in transit.  The long o sound had transformed as it left his mouth into a long u sound.  How could that happen?  Didn't he realize just how juvenile that sounded?  That was something a baby would say.  Booboo.  And besides, everyone knew that BooBoo was Yogi Bear's little sidekick.  How could it possibly refer as well to a crushing personal injury?  Some people.   As I grew more mature and accepting of differences in culture and the impact sociological factors have on language patterns, I became more accepting of anomalies in speech among those around me.  Though bobo and booboo seemed to be prevalent, a third designation, though admittedly rarer, crept into usage as well.  The onomatopoeiacal etymology of this one was a bit more obvious that the other two.  And sadly, my own grandsons have fallen victim to this particular corruption of verbal communication.  Now I find I must acknowledge the presence, not of a bobo.  Now I must kiss to make it feel better, not a booboo.  Now the injury of any scale has taken on this new form, called in the vernacular of the new generation, owie.  Ah, what has our world come to?   But to return to our original query, what is it about the presence of a simple bandaid that suddenly, inexplicably, often with nearly the effectiveness of a mother's kiss, causes the pain of an injury to fade and often disappear completely?  And why can its effectiveness be measured in direct proportion to the age of the victim?  In other words, why does it work so effectively on children, cut not so much on adults?  And the other day when I went fishing with Ned, why didn't that place where the crab grabbed my hand and cut me in two places stop hurting when I finally got a bandaid on it?    Well, OK, it did feel some better, though I can't be sure that it was because of the bandaid or because Chris was the one who put the bandaid on it.  She is a mother and a grandmother, after all.  There is an incredible amount of power in that combination.  I guess that would be the first, most important, reason.  There is just something magical when you are two years old and your Mommy is amazing and she kisses it and assures you that it is all better.  The unadulterated trust that a child has for his Mommy works wonders with short term difficulties.  For the older, more experienced child, perhaps the practical reasoning comes more into play.  With the bandaid on, you don't keep snagging the edges on the fabric of the couch, or scraping the scab off accidentally before you have a chance to pick it off on your own.  And then there is the scientific reasoning, certainly meant more for the mature wounded.  It's probably the Neosporin at work, supplementing the effectiveness of the white blood cells as they fight off infection.  Sigh.  So why doesn't it work on rheumatoid arthritis?  Although to be fair, I never have tried putting a bandaid on my elbow or my knees when I have a flare-up.    Sometimes the scientific approach is best.  Sometimes the practical covering is what is most needed.  Sometimes only a Mommy's magic is acceptable.  And sometimes it takes all three in some measure.  That's the genius of the Bandaid Effectiveness Theory.     I suppose the Bandaid Effectiveness Theory can be bettered by only one other proposal for dealing with pain.  See, some kinds of pain can only be handled spiritually.  And a spiritual bandaid does so much more than simply cover up a scab so it doesn't keep getting torn off … though it does that.  It does more than just inject spiritual Neosporin into the wound … though in a sense it does that, too.  It is closer to the Mommy magic kind of bandaid action, actually, because it involves absolute trust, not in Mommy, but in Jesus.   1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."   Father, thanks for Neosporin and bandaids and Mommies.  But thanks most of all for Jesus.  Amen.