unconventional zit-popping

Earlier this week, I licked my upper lip at a random moment and discovered a small but noticeable lump on it. Curious, I licked again to make sure I hadn't hallucinated the lump. Its existence now confirmed, I lumbered over to the bathroom mirror and took a good look:

Yup. A zit.

On my fucking lip.

I didn't want to lance the zit with a needle; if I stabbed too deeply and the damn thing bled, I'd leave a mark that would be visible to my students the following day. So instead of doing that, I tried popping the zit with my fingers.

In the taxonomy of zittage, this one would have been classified as Prominent, but with almost no whitehead. Sometimes that sort of zit is the most rewarding to pop: you squeeze it from different directions, feeling the pain build, watching the whitehead get bigger and bigger as more pus nears the surface, and then finally there's this gratifying pop-- more felt than heard. If you've done it right, the zit's guts splat on the mirror like ejaculate, and you find yourself basking in a feeling of post-coital pride and accomplishment.

What made this zit worse, though, was its location. Lip-sitting zits are rare for me-- about as rare as a zit inside the nostril (a story for another time, my love). I could feel that this particular evil mound was ready to launch, despite the nearly invisible whitehead, but for some reason it resisted my efforts at massaging its white lava to the surface. I knew, after a few minutes, that the time had come for drastic measures.

I was still unwilling to grab a needle. What I needed, or so I thought, was something firmer than my fingers to serve as the zit-pincher. That's when it hit me:

Teeth. I could use my teeth.

I give myself credit for not hesitating: once the decision had been made, it was goddamn go time. I sucked my upper lip between my teeth, deliberately taking in too much lip. By slowly releasing the suction, I was able to feed my lip between my teeth until the zit was directly between my incisors. With surgical precision, I slowly, gingerly bit down.

(Pop.)

Ahhhhhh, bliss.

The zit popped right away, shooting out all of its pus and none of its blood, and I was once again a star in my own mind.

There are snipers out there who can target a human head from over a mile away. The number of snipers who can consistently bring their target down in a single shot from that range is small enough to fill a van. They constitute an elite fraternity. I, too, belong to a small fraternity of dudes who can pop zits with their teeth on the very first try.

So where's my damn medal?


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