Mama Needs a Cosmo

The cure for acne is in there somewhere . . .

I’d very much like to take some time and thank everyone who wrote in regarding my Mary Kay Lady post. The comments were uplifting and the feedback was amazing.

One thing I have to smack myself up about is the fact that I have a tendency to write as if you all CAN READ MY MIND. You can’t. And I know this. But sometimes I click the “publish” button a bit too early, especially when I’m angry.

I say this because I forgot to mention in my Mary Kay Lady post that I have spent some time reading through a few of the acne forums I’ve found on various medical websites. And to say the least, what I’ve read is troubling.

Grown men and women of various ages and professions discuss openly how they feel about themselves, their doctors, and the support (or lack thereof) they receive from their families and/or friends. Some of it is inspiring, but much of it is just plain dreadful and leaves me with a heavy heart. Can you imagine contemplating suicide because you’ve tried everything for your acne and nothing seems to work and your breakouts are so horribly painful that you CAN’T EVEN BRUSH YOUR TEETH? Me either. My situation is NOTHING compared to what some of these people are going through.

I should have added that to my Mary Kay Lady post. But I didn’t, and I apologize for that. Because there are a few folks who sent me emails who think that there are bigger and more serious issues to complain about or throw my support behind than acne.

And I get that. I get that acne isn’t terminal. Acne doesn’t cause earthquakes that kill people, nor does it cause non-operable brain tumors.

However, it DOES make people wish they were dead. And that’s wrong.

Approaching someone at the mall and telling them that you can help them with their acne is just plain tacky, especially if you are NOT A MEDICAL OR DERMALOGICAL PROFESSIONAL. It’s also inappropriate. And wrong. And I did something about it.

Someone very close to me stated that I should have just told the Mary Kay Lady that what she was doing was inappropriate and should have moved on. But I just couldn’t do that. Mostly because I tend to put my bitch on quickly instead of taking the high road. This time, though, I needed to stand up for myself because I was in the presence of my children. Here is how I responded to my friend:

As far as the Mary Kay lady goes, I still believe she needed to hear what I had to say. If I had said to her, “You know, what you’re doing is totally tacky and if you keep doing it you’re going to eventually approach a woman who isn’t afraid to give you a black eye,” she wouldn’t have gotten it, and then she would have just gone on to the next person and the next person until sooner or later someone punched her in the face. I punched her in the face without punching her in the face. MK consultants are a different breed. They are taught NOT to hear “no.” And they are taught to keep pushing and pushing and pushing until you eventually say yes. Do you know that one time at a collaborative show (with different consultants from different businesses all selling their stuff), I told an MK consultant that I didn’t like a product, and her first response was to ask me if I “had used it correctly”?! It was EYE SHADOW. How do you not use EYE SHADOW correctly? So I said, “I didn’t like how it creased after two hours,” and she said, “Did you try using our eyelid base prep?” And it could have gone on and on. They have a response or script for EVERYTHING. Going up to a total stranger at a mall and tactlessly approaching them about a sensitive issue is WRONG, and she needed to hear that. There are better opening lines than, “I’ve got something that can help with that problem you’ve got going on right there.” But it’s not for me to teach her leadership skills and tact. Most would consider using common sense, but MK consultants lack common sense, so that’s what her upline is for, and that was why I brought up her director. I guess being disenfranchised by direct sales has made me abrasive to the industry. MY common sense lesson revolves around how I appeared to my boys. I didn’t like that they saw me like that. But the more I think about it, the more I don’t regret saying what I said. The boys WILL have to stand up for themselves some day, and that’s what their Mom did. I didn’t totally lose control; I didn’t get in her face or scream at her – I just made sure she heard me. When I said, “Are you out of your friggin mind,” I wanted to be sure I got her attention. A few people looked our way, but for the most part people kept going along without so much as a 2nd glance. The only audience we had were two girls selling curling irons at the kiosk next to us and the boys. Jake referred to me “being mean” because he recognized my tone and the look on my face. I never said anything derogatory. I delivered a message. And I’m sure she’ll remember it for a very long time. You’re right – I am confrontational, probably because I can’t STAND walking away from whatever it is I’m walking away from and then five minutes later wish I’d said something. I HAD to say something because she lacked any knowledge of how people with acne feel. I stuck up for myself because there are people who would have let her go on with her schpeel while totally dying inside. People who have been to the doctor over and over and have tried EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN (perhaps INCLUDING Mary Kay) and nothing seems to work but still manage to leave the house every day because they have to. You should read some of the forums that I’ve visited about acne. I suppose I should have written about what I’ve read, and I did touch on how acne makes me feel personally, but did you know that there are GROWN MEN AND WOMEN contemplating suicide because of what their skin looks like? Reading about them makes me feel like my “problem” isn’t all that bad. But what if I WERE contemplating that, and this MK consultant had approached me? What then? Hopefully I prevented that from ever happening.

So that’s where I stand. I have no regrets about how I responded, and neither should anyone else who gets approached by one of these Pink Zealots. What pisses me off even more is the fact that I LOVE SOME OF MARY KAY’S PRODUCTS. I do. I use their wrinkle cream, and I just finished telling someone that their Medium Coverage Foundation has always done me proud. It’s never made me break out, the coverage is awesome, and it doesn’t leave my skin oily. Why can’t I just buy it at CVS? Until then, I’ll just buy it from someone trying to dump their inventory on eBay or Craigslist.

Okay . . . this was part II of my prelude. I will eventually get to my real post about my doctor and what she prescribed and how it’s working and what it’s doing to my body. But first, I need to write about something funny. I haven’t brought the funny in a while.

There's something in this bag that can help your pesky little skin conditions. But only if you let a rabid Mary Kay consultant clothes-line you and punch you in the stomach first.

There are so many words that can describe my recent experience with a Mary Kay consultant that I actually can’t narrow it down to a reasonable number, so I shall combine a few of the adjectives into one word: CLUIDIOSHAMUPILESS.

Which is clueless, idiot, shameful, and stupid all rolled into one.

**********

For most of my life, I’ve enjoyed having a pretty decent complexion. I’d have a breakout here and there, and then maybe once in a while a “tu-MAH” would appear and take over my life for about two weeks.

And that would be it.

Lately, however, I’ve been dealing with horrible breakouts (whiteheads and tu-MAHS) on my chin. When one side clears up, the other side flares up. And vice versa. Oh — and let’s not get into the bright red ones that have begun to appear on my forehead and chin.

And it’s not like I enjoy this. NO ONE enjoys acne. Unless they’re just plain psychotic.

But I have to go on with my life, so I’ve been trying different products in the quest to beat this shit. And then I try to cover it up. Which is an exercise in futility because seriously, DO YOU THINK NO ONE CAN SEE A CLUSTER OF CYSTS UNDER TWO INCHES OF AMAZING CONCEALER? REALLY?

Ugh. I hate my face.

Which brings us to February 13.

I had taken the boys to the mall to pick up the LOML’s Valentine’s Day gifts. And all had been going pretty well until I was accosted by a woman wearing a red jacket.

I expect this of the Kiosk Carnies that have taken over the common areas of any mall. I have plans of action for these folks, and can usually manage a trip to the Galleria without ever having to talk to any of them.

This woman, however, totally caught me off guard.

“You know,” she said, “I’ve got something that can help the problem you’ve got going on right there,” making a circular motion with her index finger around her chin area.

Uh. Muh. GAWHHH.

Trying to keep my composure because the boys were with me, and trying to believe she didn’t say what she said, I responded with, “Problem?”

“You knowww . . . [leaning in closer and whispering] the aac-nee thing . . .”

And for a minute I had an out of body experience, and during that out of body experience I visualized punching this woman in the stomach and then kneeing her in the face as she doubled over in pain from me punching her in the stomach. Which is EXACTLY how she was able to make me feel.

That doesn’t happen very often, because I’ve been quite successful in letting people know that NO ONE has the power to MAKE ME FEEL ANYTHING except for me.

Bosses or co-workers or asshole ex-boyfriends don’t make me cry. *I’M* the one who makes me cry.

The LOML or my Mom or the 10 o’clock news doesn’t make me cry. *I’M* the one who makes me cry.

But somehow this bitch was able to get into my psyche. Because for the first time in all of my 37 years, I actually can’t stand the way I look, and it has brought my self esteem to an all-time low. I hate my complexion. Sometimes to the point where I wish I didn’t have to leave the house. I’ve never been in this boat before, and it’s making me seasick.

And what REALLY PISSED ME OFF was the realization that she was a Mary Kay consultant (What level is the Red Jacket, anyway?). If it had been ANYONE else. And I mean ANYONE (my dad, the lady at the Clinique counter, a mall cop — anyone), it wouldn’t have affected me as much.

In fact, I probably could have even handled some big, tan, buff dude scream at me, “Hey! Fat lady! I’ve got something that can help you with that obesity thing you’ve got going on over there!”

Because isn’t there supposed to be some unwritten/unspoken code that states, “Thou shalt not go there” when it comes to acne? Isn’t that one on a very short list of things that you don’t talk to complete strangers about? Or is that just me being naive?

Anyway, because I knew that this woman had either — (a), been told that it was okay to approach women this way and had more than likely practiced a prepared script in her car for 30 minutes before walking into the mall or (b), was so far in Mary Kay debt that she would say anything to anyone to get them to buy something — I reacted in a way that made me come almost completely unglued.

“Almost,” because I had the boys with me.

Seriously. HOW could anyone be so dreadfully tactless? ESPECIALLY in front of children?

So, I (literally) unclenched and reclenched my fists, rolled my head around on my neck to loosen the tension, and said (quite loudly), “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FRIGGIN’ MIND?”

Surprised by my response, she gave me the puppy dog head-tilt, furrowed her eyebrows, and said, “I’m sorry? . . . ”

“You SHOULD be! Did your Director tell you it was okay to ambush people with acne in order to make a few bucks?”

To which she blinked hard and snapped her head back, as if surprised by my knowledge of how direct sales uplines worked.

Not letting her answer, I continued, “Do you think wearing that name tag makes you a medical professional? Or a Dermatologist? Because the only people qualified to tell me that ‘they’ve got something to help this problem I’ve got going on right here’ is a certified, medical professional. Are you credentialed?”

“Well, no, but . . .”

“Or do you think that I ENJOY having to BE FORCED to have this conversation with a complete stranger, who has NO FRIGGING IDEA what I have or have not tried and what has or what hasn’t worked for me in the past or what’s exactly CAUSING this crap to come up to the surface of my face?”

“I didn’t . . .”

“And if YOU had acne, would you think it okay for a complete stranger to stand in your path at the mall and tell you that she’s got a product that could help her?”

“Well, if you’d let me talk, I could tell you that I would LOVE to hear what anyone said if I thought it would help. I was just trying to help.”

Shaking my head in disgust, I said, “Wow. You people really ARE delusional, especially for thinking it’s okay to prey on women who you KNOW are feeling low. I knew that some of you had no moral compass, but this . . . this is beyond unacceptable, and I hope that the next person you try this with rips you an even bigger one that I just did. What you’re doing is NOT okay, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”

Then I grabbed Jake by the hand and nearly ran over her foot with the oversized race car stroller I’d rented for Benny.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, I broke down and cried.

I cried after I walked away.

I cried on the way home.

And I cried in the bathroom after I got home.

God, I hate my face.

To make matters worse, Jake kept asking me, “Why are you crying, mama? Why were you so mean to that lady, mama?”

And all I could manage to get out was, “Jacob, that lady hurt mama’s feelings so I tried to hurt her back.”

I didn’t know what was worse: The fact that I let her “get to me,” or the fact that someone would actually block my path in order to point out that, hello, I HAVE ACNE and think that I’d actually be SO OKAY WITH IT THAT I’D FORK OVER A CREDIT CARD. Or even worse, my contact information and a promise to have a Mary Kay party.

AS IF.

**********

So tell me, did I overreact? In hindsight, I think I may have spewed a little too much acid. But honestly — being pulled aside AT THE MALL to discuss my acne problem with a complete stranger? I don’t even like talking about it with the LOML, let alone a Mary Kay consultant who has no idea what my story is.

And yes, that really WAS a prelude. There’s more to come. Because I actually DID see a doctor about my problem and I’ve got a few things to say about that as well. (Nice things, though.)