Blackheads

     My Granny had the most beautiful skin....ever.  In her later years, her regimen was simple, just wash it with a wet rag daily, but I can remember her washing her face daily with that old Black & White soap (that reminds me of her Tussy deodorant, idk why, but it does, lol) and using face creams.  I don't remember what kind, but she always wore face cream to bed.  Probably as recently as the 90s I can remember her having Oil of Olay beauty fluid in her medicine cabinet. 

     I didn't even know what a blackhead was the first time I heard my Granny talking about them, but I remember her talking to her sister, my aunt Linda, about someone who apparently had them. "And that face!  She needs to press them blackhead!" (again, everything was singular, lol)

     When I was the ages of 5 to maybe 14, Granny would pay me a dollar to "do" her face.  Doing her face consisted of searching for blackheads, expressing them if you found one and plucking her "beard" that consisted of like 3 hairs a month, one was blond, and the other two were on a mole.  LOL I realize this is TMI, but she was so vain....and so beautiful, but I don't think she knew how beautiful she was.  I can remember her saying " Puh, come pluck my beard, I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I cant face the public looking like a man."  So I would pluck all three hairs out and collect my dollar, then run straight to Fontenot's with it to get a bag of chips, a candy and a soda. 

     While I was plucking her "beard", she would ask me things like " Did you get him?" (hairs and blackheads apparently were masculine) and Id say no and she'd say " Well you sure rip (ripped) a new hole in my face to not get him!" Man, I loved her!  She was just so cute.  And I know you're probably wondering how such a disgusting conversation could be so endearing to me, but some of our best talks were had while I was pruning her like we were a family of chimps. Just a week before she died, she was sitting in the recliner that Im staring at as I type and she said "Well, I guess I'll go lay down.  Puh?"  So I said "What Granny?"  "Get the tweezer and come pluck the hair on my chin and see if have some blackhead"  That was the last time we had our "session".....if only I'd known it was the last time, I would have made it last longer. 

     I truly don't think that Granny understood the organ that is our skin.  She thought that her having a blackhead or two was the absolute worst thing that could happen to her at times, when really it was simply a clogged pore that, when oxidized, the sebum inside it turned black, making it visible.  You couldn't "press" her blackheads too hard, because then you would be "making me all kinda new wrinkles!" 

     One time, when Granny was mad at me, I was probably 25 or 26, I began to kiss her all over her face.  (She could never stay mad at me for long) As I began to kiss her forehead, nose and cheeks she laughed and giggled, shouting at me "STOP IT, you're gonna make me some blackhead!" 

    I wonder if her favorite thing about her glorified body is that it has no blackheads or blemishes.........or if, when I get to Heaven, I will resume my job as her facialist?