In Praise of Zits

I want to tell you about an ingrown hair on my upper thigh. There is a large bump now the size of a lima bean with a wee white head festering with an industry with ooze that I absolutely cannot wait to pop. Each night before bed I pray and pray and pray that when it does come time to pop this mother-ship of a zit there will not be an eruption of puss; I pray for a swirling, spiraly, out of control noodle-like release. Those are the best kinds of zits to pop. The ones with the instant, Mt. St. Helen's type explosion are fun, but the noodle-makers (technical term) are by far the best. There's just something extremely satisfying about watching all that puss zip straight out of your own skin like a minature version of squeezing a tube of toothpaste.

This is not my first relationship with ingrown hair zits. Once I had one on my chest that I squeeze so hard that it blew out a pencil eraser size hunk of skin that has never grown back, which means there's a little, jagged dent there; I wear it like a medal. My last year of college I got an ingrown hair right between my eyes, the ever epic third eye. I provoked this goddamn thing so much that to this day you will see me walking around with a little red dot between my eyes. This is because I've been squeezing, prodding, hoping that some puss has grown there, that a thin, thin noodle with shoot straight out of my forhead. Most times zits are positioned in strange places on the body that make you strain your neck or contort your body to see when you pop them. Not this guy Paul. That's the name of my third eye zit, Paul. That's what he told me anyway. We've been pals, roomies, and partners in crime since 2001. Yes, he's eight years old. He is my first born. My only child. He's in second grade. He's the ooze of my life.

And Paul doesn't mind that Paulina, the lima bean sit has moved in. He knows she's only probably here for a little while. Or maybe not. I have to admit that if I had a lima bean noodle-maker zit I could pop every month, I'd be a happy man. And the best would be all the random places I could pop it when I just can't resist the urge, when I know this is the day the zit hath made for popping. Squirt. Squish. Squish.