It was just a normal day — you know hanging out near the daylily flowerbed counting butterflies — when a strange sensation occurred. What the heck? I mean call it a premonition, a glance into the crystal ball, mentalism, or whatever, but I knew. Yes, I knew immediately something was coming – something?

    Call it a Harry Potter overdose, but I knew. Like the day, before the day — it was coming, for sure. Strange. Stranger than strange. It was like those restlessness, antsy, and scary feelings all slapped together. Well, I was there.

    Then, that’s when it happened – a ZIT! What? Can a Memaw really have a zit?  Just didn’t calculate – Memaw plus XX equals ZIT! But there it was – living and breathing, jivin’ and jirating. What to do? What to do?

     As the days passed, the thing actually bonged into an area so noticeable, near my upper eyebrow, and increased in an unbelievable multitude of oozing largeness, that I realized it was Crisis Time. I had to formulate a plan.

    First, I tried bangs. You remember those bangs, don’t you — the ones that flip flopped with your eyelashes, like Farrah Fawcett or the Beatles? I thought it might work. Well, it worked for about two days until the small inflamed elevation of the skin (Webster’s definition) rammed through my “bangy” camouflage. Sigh.

    Next plan. I walked the aisles of every drugstore cosmetic department, each and every medical supply department  searching, searching, searching for help. The aisles were crowded and I bumped into teenies, tots, and in-betweeners, I knew I didn’t belong there. I really didn’t belong there. So I returned home to regroup.

    As I entered the front door, something called to me. It was the bathroom magnifying mirror. However, no magnification was needed by this point. It was a done deal. The zit was there and it aimed to stay. Oh, dear, me.

    Allow me to give you the full, gosh-awful, details. We are friends, you and I. I know I can trust you with my lowest point, complexion-wise. Well OK, here we go.

    Imagine my face as a map of the U.S. My big blue eyes are two of the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River flows nicely down the front of my nose, giving me a nice profile, and the muddy waters enter the mighty Gulf of Mexico, swishing and swirling, out of my mouth — made me think of a hurricane, sort of. And there, to the left and a little north of the Great Lakes, yes, there it is – the Zit from Mount Rushmore! Look carefully, and you can see George Washington staring stately across the nation, with Abe Lincoln peeking from the east. Ugh!

    Not that I’m unpatriotic. I love the Presidents, just not sitting on my brow, please. I really needed help! That’s when I decided to pull out the big, over-sized black sunglasses. Of course, they are not prescription, but unimportant, I reasoned, due to the crisis at hand.

    Never mind that I must stumble along, feeling my way through the house and into the garage, as I fished for the car keys and felt for the ignition switch. I must escape at all costs.

    I drove slowly, but confidently to the nearest makeup store. My latest plan included some sort of magic to offset the thing. I decided to purchase a very dark eyebrow pencil and over paint them – black and sultry, so unlike my blonde coloring. I remembered cousins of my granny who employed this same diversion.

    That’s really all I remember about those ladies — the overwhelming thick, black eyebrows. Wonder what they were hiding?

    I didn’t even wait to return home to administer my latest zit remedy. As I stood in the parking lot, using the car’s rearview mirror to create some lovely black, black artwork, I noticed small children and a few men began to run in the opposite direction. Either I looked really good or really bad. I opted for the good.

    So now, I have the fluffy bangs, dark sunglasses, and lovely black, black artwork – made the U.S. map look a little startling, but Mount Rushmore was just barely legible. Maybe this would work?

    Perhaps I should apply for a patent? Weird is sort of “in” these days – not that it has ever been “out?” Remember Cleopatra?

    It has now been two weeks – there is a small red spot where Mount Rushmore once sat. I’ve put the black sunglasses back in the case. Threw the black eyebrow pencil to the back of the makeup drawer, but I think, I will hold on to the bangs for a while. Someone said the bangs make me look Bohemian.

    I looked it up in Webster — musical, artistic, and literary.

    Yes, Mount Rushmore has been replaced with Bohemianism. I like that.