column - insecurites and industries

Every year, hundreds of volcanic eruptions occur. Broiling, red hot magma spurts out of the
mountains. People scream. Lives and livelihoods are destroyed. The helpless humans try their best to mitigate the damage – buckets of water, fire retardants, and lucky charms – but to no avail. The towering messengers of smoldering destruction never stop terrorizing the populace.

I am, of course, referring to pimples.

Being the little baby I am, I easily get nightmares from good horror movies, bad horror movies, and bad parodies of bad horror movies. But waking up in the morning to a smoldering mountain of red on my nose is on an entirely different level of terror.

I hear that normal people have nightmares of being naked, which supposedly suggests subconscious insecurity or something to that effect. I laugh at their trite nudist fantasies. Because at least in that situation, no one ever seems to actually notice that, well, you're butt naked.

Now a pimple, on the other hand -- every time you dare show your volcanic face in public, the blind population increases.

So naturally, wherever there’s an insecurity, there’s an industry. With companies like Neutrogena touting a magical "pore-cleansing" formula and Cetaphil with its "now 3x more powerful!" daily cleanser, pimple-stricken teenagers now have the appropriate arsenal to defend against the red alien invaders.

Unfortunately, I am not one of those teenagers. Starting from seventh grade, I have unwillingly nurtured my very own Ring of Fire right on my forehead. Yet five years of oily catastrophe and six different acne creams later, I've long since accepted my fate as a giant walking Petri dish for acne bacteria to party in. Sure, it may not be very attractive to have volcanoes and craters all over my face, but it's not like I'm some shirtless model gracing shopping bags around the world. There's nothing to lose!

Of course, it would be nice if all those creepy little bacteria would leave me and my exquisitely textured face alone. But even then, I've pretty much learned to accept my pimples for the poor (albeit hideous) creatures that they are. After all, it’s not fair to just exterminate things if they’re ugly, right?

Uh...right?

...Guys?