I spent today helping my mother move to a new, very cool place about 4 blocks away from her old place. First off, moving 4 blocks is about the same as moving 40 miles, there's still a ton of shit to do. But my mother and I work well together. She doesn't get pissed off when I get a little bossy, and I don't question the fact that she needs two shower rods because she likes the look of a cloth curtain but she can only shower with the clear liner pulled over since seeing Psycho in 1960. We're both eccentric and understand eachother as only another true eccentric can.

One little idosyncracy that my mother and I have never seen eye to eye on came up again today in the form of band aids. I cut my finger and needed one, and my mother didn't have any. Not because we were out or couldn't find them, but because she is absolutely, totally convinced that band aids are a complete and utter waste of money.

Now, my mother is in no way cheap. She will freely spend money on all manor of things, and is, in fact, almost embarassingly genorous. To name one example, she bought me a $550 toaster last year for my birthday. Granted, it makes absolutely stellar toast, but for $550, someone should show up and butter it for you, you know? It's extravagant. So, money is not the object here.

Anyway, she fixed me a band aid out of black electrical tape and a folded square of toilet paper. Sometimes it's masking tape. Other times just regular scotch tape. But never band-aids. Needless to say I just "let the air get at it" a lot when I was young and kids were cruel. Doesn't matter what it is, either. Cuts, scrapes, blisters, there's nothing you can't fix with electrical tape and toilet paper. "Band aids are for wimps" is her motto.

I have bought her band aids, which sit unused in her medicine cabinet unless someone cuts themselves and then she'll give them a band aid, along with 23 extras in an attempt to rid her house of the box, but she'll never be caught dead with one. It's a sign of weakness in one's moral fibre.