wen is enough . . .

This shouldn't happen to me.  But it did.  I woke up this morning with a huge honking pimple on my nose.  A ZIT!!!!!   At my age.  Where is the fairness in all this?  Was it not bad enough that I had to endure acne as a teenager?  Was that not enough torture?  Well to be utterly truthful, I didn't have acne all that badly except during the first trimester of my pregnancy but let's not count that disaster . . .  out of control hormones are another story.

But every time something monumental would happen, my face would sprout a doozie.  Picture day.  Exams.  My sister's wedding.  Valentine's Day.  Prom. Spring Fling.  Every other Wednesday.  The third Tuesday of each month.  Whenever the moon rose.  You get the idea,  I was the one who always had just one blazing zit.  Mount Vesuvius.   No sooner it would clear and another would pop up to say hello. 

I remember vividly being on an Air Berlin flight home from Germany and one of the owners of a rival hotel looked at me with pity and said,  “Jeanne, I don’t understand it.  You had beautiful skin yesterday and today you have THAT.” . . .   as if I really needed her to point out the carbuncle that has appeared mid flight.  Thank you Mrs. Madorsky.  Thank.you.very.much.

Finally, in my 30's I went to a dermatologist who diagnosed me with not one, but two types of cystic acne . . .  lucky me.  Medicine was my new best friend.  Truthfully, it wasn't until I had my guts ripped out hysterectomy that my acne disappeared.  What a blessed relief.  I no longer ran to the mirror first thing in the morning to see what part of my face had exploded during the night. 

Rare is the day that my complexion isn’t clear.  Isn’t that a perk of old age?   So what did I do to anger the acne fairy?  Did I look wistfully at the junior section at Macy’s.  Did I covet her chocolate bar?  Who knows what the offense was.  Maybe she just decided I needed one more reminder of my salad days.   And actually, that’s not a bad idea . . . just minus the wen on my nose next time . . . please.