Remember the days of the old scab yard?

Whatever happened to scabs? They were a stable of being a kid. Most scabs where kept perfectly covered with pristine breathable 3M plasters. But mine were not so lucky. You see my Mum, after rummaging through out of date Pandols and jars of tiger balm, could only ever find the tiny circle or long skinny rectangle plasters. So I would end up with this strange abstract art piece across my knee. Or sometimes Dad would get some scissors out and craft me a bespoke one out of a massive roll of plaster tape. He also used the tape to hold wires together or to wrap up our birthday presents.

But no matter what the plaster was I could never resist picking if off. Sitting on the mat at school it gave me great joy to peel it back to inspect how the healing was going. If it looked as though it was remotely healed I would try and pick a bit off. It would go well at first but I would get over vigorous. And it would start to bleed. I would freak out because my teacher hated scab pickers. Almost as much as she hated kids that played with the Velcro on their shoes. So I would try and stick the plaster back down. But as I had already peeled it off so many times that there was little stick left. And if I was really unlucky it might have even folded back on itself so there was no chance of sticking it back down at all. I would be forced to let it just dangle down my leg like a sad, ripped down Happy Birthday banner.

So now 20 years later and my knees are covered in little scars. I also have one on my hand in between my fingers. Remember how annoying it was to have a plaster there? Every time you moved your fingers it would come off . Or you would forget about it when you washed your hands and it would become all slimey. For some reason when this happened I would put the plaster in my pocket like a souvenir or something. Strange child that I was. But times have changed, I get quite excited when I can put a plaster on now. Strange adult that I am.