When I spotted those red Badger bracelets at the bookstore asking me to support the very institution I was waiting in line to have ravish my wallet, I tried to imagine what sort of student would actually wear one.
That's when I realized I probably wouldn't recognize a Badger band if I saw one. After all, red wristbands have also been snapped up in the names of AIDS, heart disease, diabetes, tsunami relief and ed state"" pride (electoral gloating), to name a mere few.
Wristbands are propagating so quickly and spreading their charitable chic so thickly that some are starting to cancel each other out. The L.A. Times even reported this week that some hospitals use yellow wristbands to flag their ""do not resuscitate"" patients, and doctors worry the ubiquitous ""Livestrong"" bracelets could result in a tragic, yet deliciously ironic mistake.
This can only be a sign that the critical mass of the entire wristband phenomenon is nearing and it will soon collapse under its own rubbery, self-aggrandizing weight.
For amid such a cacophony of colors and causes, how can my awareness be raised if I can't figure out what a band is advocating or denouncing?
How am I to evaluate the characters of those around me? How am I to know which particular diseases, disasters and human rights abuses the cool kids are abhorring, so I can abhor them, too?
Similar anxieties will fuel the fall of the wristband dynasty from within, as the anguish and guilt wearers experience when they have to choose a mere one or two to display has to extract a toll. (""Gee, does today feel like a ringworm awareness day, or a syphilitic insanity awareness day?"")
The wristbands have also endangered themselves by breaching the borders of bad taste, as evidenced by Wisconsin's own Marquette University and its recent flap over selling ""Adopt a Sniper"" bracelets bearing the uplifting inscription ""one shot, one kill, no remorse, I decide.""
Yes, the wristband event horizon is approaching, and I think it will play out in one of two ways: Either some chemical compound in the bands themselves will be found to cause an entirely new ailment, or people will start wearing so many bracelets they will create a rainbow effect and thereby take over for SpongeBob and Buster as fall-entity harbingers of the ""homosexual agenda.""
However it happens, it will be welcome, for the wristband craze sadly parallels the ineffectual responses of those in power who could alone effect more good than any accumulation of dollars-from-every-purchase: Spend a relatively trifling amount to make a visible, public statement against some ill or in support of some sufferers, feel you've done your share and then some, then move on.
I suppose wristbands remind me of the time I saw ""remember 9/11"" spray painted on a wall-it was such a profoundly non-subversive, discussion-muting statement, I couldn't see why someone had made it. It didn't even seem apt to call it graffiti.
But perhaps it was in fact prime, true graffiti, for it challenged the very concept. Maybe the wristbands serve a similar reflective purpose.
Or, maybe they're just empty fads that suck more than they contribute-seeing as how I'm not being paid by anyone in the executive branch to rule on the matter, I'll leave it up to you.
Holly Noe's column runs each Friday. Make a statement at flamingpurvis@yahoo.com.
