Wristband colors of the rainbow

Ever notice how quantity often has a converse relationship with quality? If someone screams “Fire!” at random times in a movie theater, people will eventually start punching him in the face to shut him up. But if on the 47th time, there actually is a fire, someone will punch him in the face and he’ll be unconscious while everyone gets burned alive.

Okay, so maybe that’s not the best example, but my point is that when there’s a lot of something, each item tends to lose its individual significance. If everyone is different, then being “different” doesn’t mean anything anymore. The same idea applies to all of the colored wristbands that are supposed to grab people’s attention for various causes, diseases, etc. For example, when people see a yellow wristband, they’ll probably think of Lance Armstrong and cancer of the nuts, but there are a limited number of colors of the rainbow and the various causes, diseases, etc. start to double up. (You can check out a loooooooong list here.)

Personally, I’ve been wearing a lime green wristband for a while now. (It’s been at least six months because I currently have a really odd-looking tan line on my left wrist.) For me, it’s meant to signify non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but for others, it may refer to Lyme disease or muscular dystrophy.

More recently, I visited a friend and we traded: I gave her a lime green wristband in exchange for a purple one, which was labeled “Someone You Know Has LUPUS”. Guess which disease it’s referring to… Then I went to that website link above and was blown away by the list of items under purple. I saw Epilepsy and thought, “Cool, it’s twice as significant for me!”

But then I scrolled down the list and found No Unattended Kids in Cars and Pagan Pride as well. Lord knows I love the Pagans, but supporting their cause on my wrist? Seems a little too close to yelling “Pagan Pride!” in a movie theater and getting punched in the face to me…