Spots

There is something totally unfair about puberty. Firstly you have agonising pain and doctors never say ‘It’s arthritis’ they write off all of the agonies of your arms, legs, back, knee, neck all down to ‘growing pains’. Then whenever anything important is about to happen you get spots. I was a particularly spotty kid. If you put together all of my school photographs, there is at least one humongous zit on my face, often a few. If you stack the pictures and flick them, the spots jump all over the place.

As a child you have only a few options, leave it to become a white headed mini Krakatoa or squeeze it until it is a lump the size of a second nose. Oh I was a squeezer, and it is nearly always a mistake. I used to go to bed every night with a big dob of Germolene that my Mam lathered on to try and undo my desperate attempts to get every single gallon of pus out of that little sucker. Then one day I discovered I had a big spot coming on my shoulder. Unknown to me it was a boil! It eventually grew to the size of a golf ball, and i had managed to keep it a secret, thinking it had only grown that big because of my mucky handed squeezing. So when my Dad was at work and my Mam at the bingo, I took my shirt off, stood in front of the mirror and put on the big light. It was time for me to see it off. After all it was uncomfortable, and my school haversack rubbed on it, making it bleed. So this was the end of it. I started to squeeze with both hands, and nothing, and the pain was excruciating. After twenty odd attempts I thought i would give it one more go. I squeezed and squeezed and there was this mighty crack! If Usain Bolt had have heard it, he would have been 100 metres away. Best place for him too, the mirror was covered with pus spatter, and white gunk dribbled down my chest, leaving a big crater. Now what? I am not a proper doctor, I just squeeze spots. So I got warm water and cleaned the wound, cleaned the mirror and then decided that antiseptic might be a good idea. I looked around the kitchen, and found a bottle of Domestos. That kills 99 percent of household germs, and my chest is in the house, so that will do! I can remember that single dab of Domestos soaked toilet paper. I almost died of shock, and spent the next hour in the bath trying to wash it off. Still I didn’t die, but had had an education.

The following day I asked my Mam to buy this stuff called Clearosil, that was said to prevent spots from happening. I used it religiously, but it didn’t. I remained a spotty Herbert until I was about 15 and a half.

In my adult life one of the ladies in my life had acne on her back, and regularly asked me to squeeze blackheads and spots, and I was as happy as that Dr. Pimple Popper on TV. Watching these wormy blackheads climbing out of a blocked pore. Add to that I had none of the pain.
Perfect!