Gay Band-Aids

On Sunday night, I played tennis at the US National Tennis Center. I hadn't played since November and it felt really good to be on the court. I love playing tennis and just banging the ball away. It's one of the rare situations when I can really stop thinking about everything going on in my life and just think about hitting the ball.

Me and my friend were playing pretty hard that day. At first I was having a little trouble seeing the ball under the bright lights in the tennis court bubble. But soon I hit my groove and stopped framing the ball so much. We were having some pretty good rallies and both of us were hitting the ball hard and running each other back and forth. I soon started to get a couple of blisters on my hand. This always happens when I play tennis for the first time after a long break. I get them from the friction between my hand and the grip on my racquet. They always arise in the same place--lower bottom left corner of my palm and on the right side of my thumb.

I kept on playing because the pain wasn't that bad, but soon the blister at the bottom of my hand popped and I needed to find something to cover it up. My friend had a band-aid, but it wasn't really staying on. I decided to go to the front desk to see if they had a bigger Band-Aid. The guy at the front desk opened his first aid kit and started rummaging through there for a big enough bandage. Finally he handed me one. I thanked him and ran back to my court.

I tore off the wrapping. Oh my god. I never knew there was a such thing as a gay band-aid, but this was definitely the gayest band-aid I had ever seen. This wasn't your normal Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid. This was one of those "novelty" clear ones with a drawing on it. The drawing on the band-aid was this buff shirtless guy doing a volleyball spike over the net. My friend and I were laughing and commenting on the guy's physique.

Well, that band-aid didn't work that well either, but it worked well enough. As long as I held my racquet really tightly, my hand wouldn't hurt so much. The next day I bought some normal band-aids. Actually I bought waterproof band-aids, which are so awesome that I can't believe I've never heard of them before. And I was putting a cold pack on my hand the next day because it was still sore from my vise-like grip on my racquet.

Well all my pain and suffering was worth it. I got to play tennis and I got to wear a new gay accessory.