Oxy Moron

So it happened today, the adult-onset pimple.

It’s on my right temple, directly next to my right eye. And all day long I’m going to look at people’s noses in hopes that they will in turn look at my nose, a nose with no pimples, instead of into my eyes. If they look into my eyes they’re going to see the pimple sitting right there and they’ll have no choice but to sound warning sirens in distress because, seriously, this pimple is threatening to annex Canada.

The most disturbing thing about this pimple is that it just came out of nowhere. I haven’t changed moisturizers or cleansers; I’m not on my period; I don’t even have a mid-term in the morning. And really, what defense is there against a pimple that has no reason to be there in the first place? It’s like trying to understand a criminal who has no motive, someone who just likes to kill or maim because he can. This pimple is pimpling just because it can.

Tonight I will see my mother for the first time in a week, and when she first greets me she’s going to remark, Heather, you’ve got a pimple! as if the damn thing just up and landed on my face the moment she walked in the door. I’ve never understood this, why mothers have to POINT OUT the existence of a pimple. It’s like telling someone who is ugly that they are ugly, as if the ugly person doesn’t already know it, as if they aren’t painfully, excruciatingly aware already of their own bitter ugliness. You’d just never do that, and so I think pimpled people deserve the same mercy, because chances are, if you’re not in a coma, you know you have a pimple.

And I know I’m not supposed to touch it, that touching it is the last thing I should do to it, but all I can think about is touching it. And somehow the urge to touch it is overriding the fact that that I know that touching it ensures at least a 14-day pimple life, from first touch to final craggy scar. Because you can’t ever get it all in that first touch, no. It takes anywhere from 4 to 2004 touches, each touch more fevered than the last, each one believing that it will be the last touch, but really, in real life, it’s not even halfway through to the last touch. And seven days into touching when you finally reach that last touch, the one that hits the pulsing, healing lava flow of blood, you’re left with a gaping, boogered canyon on your forehead that won’t erode or even accept a basic Maybelline concealer for at least another seven days, the fucking nerve.

And I guess this is what I really hate about the adult-onset pimple, it’s that it’s a lone warrior, a renegade, the Dirty Harry of facial blemishes. If it were acne or part of a juvenile brigade of pimples, everything would sort of blend in and people wouldn’t have the urge to make subtle brushing movements with their hands at their temples, letting me know silently and politely that I’ve got something, perhaps a crumb, maybe even mustard right there next to my eye. And what am I going to say to these people but I’VE GOT A FUCKING PIMPLE, ASSHOLE.