Say Hullo To My Leedle Friend

I have this thing. On my chin. It’s too huge to be a mere “blemish,” I believe an alien life form has imbedded itself in my face. I don’t know if it’s due to stress or hormones or what, but I keep thinking, it can’t possibly get any bigger, and then, good God, it DOES. The horror.

There’s no hiding it. It’s right there, Mount Vesuvius on my chin, a beast that laughs at my pathetic little makeup sponge, and scoffs in the face of my feeble concealer.

I realize it’s the kind of thing that everyone has had to deal with at one time or another. I can lug this monster to work with me, and people will see it (unless they are blind, in which case they will hear it throbbing), and, being adults, they will politely pretend not to notice. But I know. Oh, I know. On the inside, they’ll be thinking to their creamy-faced, blemish-free selves, “Holy GOD look at that GIANT ZIT! Thank the SWEET BABY JESUS that thing’s not on MY face!!”

Finally, in surrender, I said to Demigoddess the Elder, “I’m just going to take a Sharpie and draw a smiley face on this bad boy. And then everywhere I go, I’ll tell people, ‘Say hullo to my leedle friend.’”

To which she said exactly the right thing, which was, “It’s not that big. You should see (Insert Horrible Stepmother’s Name Here)’s.” I have such wonderful children.

I do look younger than I actually am. Over and over again, people say to me, “Your kids are HOW old?? No WAY! You don’t look old enough to even HAVE kids!” Not too long ago, an Old Navy co-worker assumed I was a college student, and the girls in Demigoddess the Younger’s Girl Scout troop thought I was her sister for a while. Which is all good, because I don’t really FEEL as old as I am, anyway.

But honestly. I’m so far beyond pubescent angst. I have a mortgage. I listen to public radio. I do other people’s laundry on a daily basis. I have worked too hard and have come too far to have my junior-high daughter say to me, “Don’t pop it. You’ll just make it worse and leave a scar.”

A scar will not be necessary. This one will be forever in the record books as it is, thanks.