This One's Rill Gross
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The biggest pimple I ever had in my life was a huge, red pustule on the right half of my nose closer to an aberrant cyst than your average blemish. It appeared suddenly one gray December morning bulbous and painful to the touch like a balled and raised nerve ending. I was a teenager, of course, at home and on the lam during Christmas break and I awoke to the mass greeting me and bulging my face in a way subtly foreign and it panicked me such that I felt I needed to destroy it. This would not be easy. It had no visible exit point and any attempt at incursion met with a throbbing pang like a flame under my epidermis. My eyes watered and my fists clenched as I scrubbed soap and water and alcoholic medication against the lump all without avail. But it had to go. No one must see it. So there lead to a single way, a singularly sharp and pointed instrument. No, not a knife. Something dumber, a pair of tweezers. I took an ice cube and melted it on the sore and when it had numbed enough I went about peeling the layers of flesh from it. Two places, the cold pinch pulling cellophane patches and laying bare the pink membrane underneath. Moist, secreting some scant fluid. I took my thumb and braced it at the bottom of my nose and with my index finger made a locked vice on the bridge. Perfect fit. And so I began to squeeze and squeeze again. At first, nothing. Then blood started to emanate from the holes and collect in a pool on the surface. Still nothing of value. I wiped away the red and went at it again. Applying pressure, wringing. My fingers trembled. More blood. Then, a break. I learned at that moment that the word zit is actually onomatopoeia. A thick rope of white shot out with a "zzzzzzzt" sound like a laser beam and splat on the mirror. I paused, taken aback. The sheer amount of puss was incredible, gushing like a busted capillary. Where the blood had pooled before there was now a saucer of milk pink on the rims and dripping. I cleaned the mess with a towel. Should'a used a tissue. Already I could see how the mound had deflated with the removal of its contents. When the smear had been rubbed clean and the crater dried I prepared another round to see if any more could be expunged. A swirl of cream stirred within the crimson and though there was a muffled pass and I could feel the levees opening there was much less and then none at all. What was left was an open sore carved into my face and irritated and perhaps no less appealing than the abscess it replaced. But I felt it a victory worthy of remembrance, marking it within the annuls of my often harried adolescent years. The two little dimples still scarred remind me of that place and that time. It's the little things you have to hold on to. Or in this case, eradicate.
The biggest pimple I ever had in my life was a huge, red pustule on the right half of my nose closer to an aberrant cyst than your average blemish. It appeared suddenly one gray December morning bulbous and painful to the touch like a balled and raised nerve ending. I was a teenager, of course, at home and on the lam during Christmas break and I awoke to the mass greeting me and bulging my face in a way subtly foreign and it panicked me such that I felt I needed to destroy it. This would not be easy. It had no visible exit point and any attempt at incursion met with a throbbing pang like a flame under my epidermis. My eyes watered and my fists clenched as I scrubbed soap and water and alcoholic medication against the lump all without avail. But it had to go. No one must see it. So there lead to a single way, a singularly sharp and pointed instrument. No, not a knife. Something dumber, a pair of tweezers. I took an ice cube and melted it on the sore and when it had numbed enough I went about peeling the layers of flesh from it. Two places, the cold pinch pulling cellophane patches and laying bare the pink membrane underneath. Moist, secreting some scant fluid. I took my thumb and braced it at the bottom of my nose and with my index finger made a locked vice on the bridge. Perfect fit. And so I began to squeeze and squeeze again. At first, nothing. Then blood started to emanate from the holes and collect in a pool on the surface. Still nothing of value. I wiped away the red and went at it again. Applying pressure, wringing. My fingers trembled. More blood. Then, a break. I learned at that moment that the word zit is actually onomatopoeia. A thick rope of white shot out with a "zzzzzzzt" sound like a laser beam and splat on the mirror. I paused, taken aback. The sheer amount of puss was incredible, gushing like a busted capillary. Where the blood had pooled before there was now a saucer of milk pink on the rims and dripping. I cleaned the mess with a towel. Should'a used a tissue. Already I could see how the mound had deflated with the removal of its contents. When the smear had been rubbed clean and the crater dried I prepared another round to see if any more could be expunged. A swirl of cream stirred within the crimson and though there was a muffled pass and I could feel the levees opening there was much less and then none at all. What was left was an open sore carved into my face and irritated and perhaps no less appealing than the abscess it replaced. But I felt it a victory worthy of remembrance, marking it within the annuls of my often harried adolescent years. The two little dimples still scarred remind me of that place and that time. It's the little things you have to hold on to. Or in this case, eradicate.
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