The Scarlet Pimple

People become aware of the thing mostly by happenstance, casually, a brush of the hand perhaps, suddenly aware of a slight soreness. It's usually right where you don't want it—on the face—maybe right on the tip of your nose like a beacon or a bright red maraschino cherry. Next comes the blind investigation with the plodding fingers, confirming its location and testing its size, followed by visual confirmation, which in a man's case usually means going to the bathroom mirror and having a look. “What the hell are you doing here,” we say, “I'm too old for you.”

My discovery was slightly different. I didn't notice it with a touch of the hand but rather when I stood up from my easy chair. There was the familiar soreness that told me immediately that I had a pimple and that it was a doozy. The soreness was more than one would suspect and I knew I was in for a long haul, because the pimple was not on my face, but right smack dab on my ass. In the middle of my right butt cheek, to be exact.Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

The pimples on your face are attention seekers, longing to draw the stares of friends and strangers alike. They stand up for everyone to see and loudly declare, “Look at me. I'm a pimple.” But a pimple on your butt, oh, pimples on your butt are in hiding. They are secretive, subversive. Assassins in the dark. Guerrillas seeking to overthrow the government of you. I reached down to feel the thing lightly, just barely brushing it with my fingertips. It didn't seem so large, but darn, it sure was sore.

I proceeded to the bathroom mirror and, pulling my pants down to expose my bottom, twisted around only to discover that I couldn't see the blasted thing. I would need a hand mirror. I could take the hand mirror and hold it up to the pimple, angle the reflection into the big mirror, and then see the pimple and a section of my keister there, enlarged and magnified. The very same move that Archimedes discovered when he had a pimple on his butt. But I wasn't about to do that. Turns out, I am so homophobic that I won't even look at my own naked ass in a mirror, at least not in close-up Technicolor .The Titanic Pustule

I felt it again, this time delicately pressing my fingers into the flesh surrounding the offending pustule. Oh my God. Before, all I had felt was the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.” That was nothing. No, this was a subterranean nightmare. Lurking underneath the surface, the giant mass was the size of a golf ball and just about as hard. I came to the shattering realization that this was only the beginning, that it was actually two pimples merged into one, grown together like Siamese twins. One body with two souls in a conspiratorial embrace of evil and malevolence. This sucker was going to be around for awhile, and it was going to get larger still.

The next several days were painful ones. There was no escaping it. Sit down and it was there. Stand up and it was there. I tried to keep my weight shifted to my left side when I moved, especially when sitting down or standing up, but I could never avoid it totally. Just the skin moving irritated it. I began walking like a cross between Charlie Chaplin and a duck. Sleeping proved especially difficult. I could get a little shut eye if I slept on my left side, but if rolled over onto my back the pain was excruciating, which would wake me up and I'd have to transfer my painful posterior back to the easy chair, carefully lowering myself left cheek first, awake for the duration.A Circus Life For Me

Getting out of bed took special skill. I exit my bed on the right side, but the zit complicated the issue. Picture me, if you will, getting up into a one-cheek sitting position facing the opposite way, then spinning while remaining on my left bun, and kind of doing a cheek-hop to standing move without putting any weight on the right cheek or waking my butt guest. It was Cirque De Soleil quality contortion and acrobatics. I never got it just right, but I never stopped trying.

For days, it persisted, following me around, a private eye on a tail. Finally, mercifully, the thing blew. It blew like a dormant volcano blows, surprisingly, inexplicably furious and violent. All that pressure released, and along with it, the gunk. and the pain...mostly.

I slept that night like a baby. Like a baby without a pimple on his butt. I had sweet dreams of maraschino cherries, strawberries and shiny red apples, the pimple from hell nothing but a faraway phantasm on a bun.