Look away, I'm hideous!

When do you get hit on? It happens you're feeling cute--enjoying the trifecta of perfect make up, good hair day and a well put together outfit? Right? Right?

Let me start by saying not only did I have a bad hair day, I also had a bad face day. Yesterday my face broke out with not one, but two--Two zits! one was on the side of my face, and the other? The other was positioned at the lower left corner of my left nostril. You just can't hide a zit like that. And what did I do? Squeeze. No matter how often this has happened to me, I can't seem to grasp that it's better to leave the little bump alone than piss it off by picking and poking and pushing. No good ever comes out of that. When you squeeze a zit, you're literally making a mountain out of a mole hill. In fact, zits are so common they would make for a better metaphor. (Making a zeppelin out of a zit?) Who here has seen a "mole hill" anyway?

This morning I woke up to the horrible aftermath. Mind you, I did everything I could do undo the damage I inflicted. This meant facial washes, exfoliating scrubs, pure tea tree oil, Rite Aid's answer to neosporin, and yes, hemorrhoid cream. None of these things did anything to improve the horror that greeted me in the mirror this morning. I actually consisdered taking a sick day it was so bad. Plan B was to cover the damage. I dug up my powders and lamented the great train case purge of 2007. I had thrown out perfectly good concealer tubes, the skin colored stuff and the minty green tube that gets rid of redness. Tossed! I hardly use them, so why keep 'em around, I told myself in a fit of trying to cure my own packrat-ism. Besides, I said as I held the doomed tubes above the trash can, these things expire.

I made do with the powders I had on hand. I shellacked some face colored powder over a dab of Rite Aid's answer to Neosporin and went on my merry way. I even packed an emergency kit with a few essentials for my time at work. Every trip to the bathroom would include a face check and a touch up if needed. Crisis averted.

Sort of. This afternoon I went in and tried to make another quick repair. I dabbed, powdered and blotted. Then when it looked like I had a white mole on my face, I wiped it off and started over. After three iterations, I wiped it all off at the sink and quit. From distance, it just looked like a little redness. Besides, if I kept my head low at my desk I could get out of there in two hours and no one would be subjected to my hideousness.

Well, I made it. I planned a trip to Target on the way home so I could resupply on both skin-colored and minty green tubes of concealer. I also planned to browse the acne skin wash section to fight off any future breakouts. No one tells you that zits don't end with high school. No one tells you that 30 something year old skin doesn't recover quite like teenaged skin, either.

On the train home, a man waved his hands in my face as I was reading my book with my head tucked down. I pretended not to see him but he was persistent and obvious enough to challenge my acting/faking skills. When I looked up, he complimented me.

"You have a pretty smile."

"Thank you," I said, conscious of the festering sore beneath my nose. He would look away in disgust as soon as he caught a glimpse of that pulsing, glowing caldera, I was sure of it.

He was not thwarted.

I shifted my left hand strategically.

"Oh, is that a wedding ring?"

I nodded. Phew. No chance of being hit on now.

"How long you been married?"

"Almost ten years."

He was taken aback. "You look 20, what you got married when you were 10?"

"Yes, we served Hawaiian Punch at the reception." (No, I'm lying; I didn't say this, remember I don't have the gift of the witty comeback. That line came approximately five minutes later, when I was alone and headed to my car in the parking garage.)

"Ten years. Wow."

Maybe it was my youthful complexion.