Last night I sawed through my thumb with a bread knife.

I didn’t do it deliberately, because I have use for my thumb — I find things to do with it every single day — but there I was regardless, clutching my thumb with my opposite hand and washing all of the gore off of it under my kitchen faucet.

Let this be a lesson to you not to try to cut the little red plastic tape-tab thing on your bag of mini-carrots with a knife that is far too large for the task. And when you accidentally pop the knife out from under the tape and nearly sever your thumb, you should take that as a warning rather than continuing on and actually slashing an appendage.

Also key to this experience is that knives with serrated edges cut you in a different way than those sharp ones that you use for carving roasts, or that doctors use for removing organs. Bread knife wounds are uneven, messy affairs that, after you rinse them off and the blood begins to pour out of them again, fill you with a dread for your very life. You will wonder to yourself what in God’s precious name you have done, and whether you might ever be able recover from the terrible, ragged wound you’ve inflicted upon yourself.

As your life’s precious blood comes pouring out of you, in cases such as these, you will observe that it does not flow in an even manner. Due to the nature of the wound, your vital fluids will likely take a haphazard course as they exit your body, resulting in a number of complexities as you seek to remedy the situation.

Along with sanitation, as the quiet voice in the back of your mind takes note of all the things you’ve bled on and how you’re going to have to clean them all up, prime among these difficulties is actually staunching the wound. Specifically, the step immediately following washing out the wound, slowing the flow of blood from the thumb in question and the flow of obscenities from the victim in question: Applying the bandage.

While discussing this with one of my friends, he put it succinctly: “Putting on a band-aid is exactly not like masturbating: You can try doing it with one hand, but you’ll never be satisfied.”

While I would probably object to his constant masturbation analogies — other things that are unlike masturbation, according to him, include “football”, “rowing a boat” and “playing Nintendo” — I am forced to accede to the force of his argument. There is an inherent impossibility to properly applying an adhesive bandage to any kind of wound on your hands. Invariably it will fold, slide, or fall off entirely any number of times, even while the efforts to put it on aggravate your wound even farther.

Thus, as I clutched my thumb under my faucet, fumbling in futility to get my god damned band aids to line up properly, I had my Million Dollar Idea:

Band-Aid dispensers.

It’s so simple!

It’s so perfect.

It’s so elegant. Set up a dispenser like a Kleenex box, where the bandages are sealed properly while they’re inside, but peel off when you pull them out. The only dexterity you’d require is to line up the target area of the cut or bite with the bandage, and if you’re clever enough, you could even lift the dispenser and just roll the band-aid right onto the affliction in question.

It’s genius! I’m a genius. It’s such genius that I’m almost sure someone has done it already somewhere, but if they have, then why don’t I have one right now?

The advertising would be awesome.

Victim, happily slicing bread: (schrrripp!) Oh no! My fingers, thumbs and hard-to-reach hands!
Friend: Hey, what’s happened here?
Victim: I’ve gone and done it now! Look at all these deep, awkwardly-placed cuts! If these don’t heal properly, I can kiss my dreams of a career in the fine arts, engineering or hand modeling fields goodbye! (begins fumbling hopelessly with a conventional bandage)
Friend: Looks like you’re having some trouble!
Victim: Am I ever! If only I had access to professional medical care, but it costs so much! Doctors and nurses are fine for those government fat cats, but what am I to do?
Friend: You need the Band-Aider!
Victim: But isn’t Band-Aid already a trademarked nam–
Friend: You’re right, it is a revolutionary new product, designed to assist you with mending your own scrapes, cuts and gashes with ease! Here, try mine!
Victim: (pulls bandage out with one hand and applies) Wow! That was almost as easy as greivously hurting myself in the first place! Thanks, friend!
Friend: Don’t thank me, thank the Band-Aider!

Man, I am going to be so rich.