My daughter, 17, suffers the occasional unsightly blemish. It's a common indignity most kids her age are facing, have faced or will face and I'd say she falls into the "lucky" category because of the operative word "occasional" in the first sentence.  

Recently Mount Vesuvius erupted on her left cheek–Texas-sized, impossible to conceal and just short of neon sign-flashing obvious.  She took matters into her own hands:  without his permission or my knowledge, she used her brother's prescription acne cream…

…very strong prescription cream that had come with a warning!  

His doctor, upon learning I also had a daughter, sternly cautioned us that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES was she to use this cream!  I didn't question why, presuming it was related to hormones, but it never occurred to me she'd try something for a single zit that her brother used for wide-spread, recurring outbreaks.

How could I forget the understandable vanity of a teenage girl with a red oozy bulls-eye painted on her cheek?  

So, we're sitting around our kitchen table talking, and somehow this subject comes up.  Not realizing it was a big deal, Rachel admitted using Thomas' cream.  The conversation went something like this:

Me:  "YOU CAN'T USE THAT!  THE DOCTOR SAID GIRLS COULD NOT USE IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rach (nonplussed but amused at my outburst):  "What's the big deal?  A zit's a zit…."

Me:  "The doctor didn't actually say, but I figure it has something to do with hormones.  YOU'RE PROBABLY GONNA GROW A MUSTACHE NOW OR HAIR ON YOUR CHEST…"

and before I could finish my sentence, without missing a beat, her brother chimed in…

Thomas:  "…or a penis…!"

She hasn't used it since.

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