I'm thankful for A Good Remedy for Beard Rash

The definition of beard rash is not on the internet.
So don't look it up.

The definition of beard rash, as defined by me (take into consideration my limited experience), is this:
An eruption of smooth, newly-exfoliated pinkish-red-sometimes orangish kind of unpleasant lingering tenderness on the bottom half of a non-bearded face when it has been in close, frictioned contact (kissing) with another face that is, on the contrary, bearded.

Bearded, or at least covered in two or three days' worth of stubble. One day of stubble is enough sometimes to give one the Rash, especially when you're dealing with someone who is particularly bristled. None of those pansy wisp beards ever cause real trouble.

I have experienced beard rash. And for all of you shaking your heads at me and scurrying off to think pointless derogatory things about my affectionate habits, I say, Boo You. Beard rash can occur from just two or three seconds-worth of kissing, if the person's face is sandpapery or foliagy enough. Just as it can occur from twenty minutes of kissing across the console or kissing through a movie and 45 minutes afterwards until you open your eyes, roll them, and wonder what in the heck you're doing. You're hungry. You want a pizza.

So, beard rash. I don't always get it. There seems to be no correlation between when it happens and why except for one perfectly wicked correlational device we like to call Inconvenience. It shows up like an awful cramping stomachache does when you're at the mall. Or how you all of a sudden have to go to the bathroom as soon as you get to someone's house at which you don't feel comfortable using the bathroom.

This beard rash thing sometimes is no problem at all, and sometimes flares up into a hugely conspicuous bright pink ring or beard-shaped little guy on your face. Sometimes it doesn't leave for hours. Days. Sometimes it goes away almost immediately. I have friends who experience beard rash in a crusty manner, which cannot be fun at all. Other friends actually apply things like Neosporin. I don't know if they're kissing a piece of sandstone or something with barnacles on it, but this always concerns me a little bit.

Once lately I was engaged in frictioning faces with someone very pleasant for a relatively short amount of time. Really quite short. It was kind of a goodbye-see-you-later-nice-to-see-you-Goodness-I-like-you-please-kiss-me type of thing. I had to be somewhere in a little while but I was sure I'd make it on time. I don't know why I was sure of this, why in the world, because I am always late to everything, somehow, even when I leave on time.
So I engaged in face frictioning with my fairly bristled friend--right, he has super rough facial foliage--and at some point we discontinued the activity. At some point directly after that, I looked at the clock and realized I had five minutes to be somewhere that would take me twenty, at least. No biggie, I thought. No biggie. I'm always late.

I sauntered calmly, my face tingling a little, to the closest mirror, to wipe the smudges of mascara from under the outer corners of my eyes that inevitably show up every few hours of every day.
I screamed. I looked like a clown. My face was totally orangish red pink on the bottom half. Bright and tingly and like a giant lightbulb that just says I KISSED I KISSED I KISSED I KISSED VERY RECENTLY. LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME. OW OW OW. MY FACE HASN'T EVEN COOLED OFF YET ARE YOU EMBARRASSED TO BE LOOKING AT ME?!?!

This place I was about to be late to was the last place you go with a big fat BEARD RASH on your face. The very last. I would have rather been meeting up with my grandparents with an army of hickies, the beard rash, and a cloud of angry Democrats behind me than going where I was going with the beard rash alone.

My pleasant bristled friend (shall we call him, the PBF?) stood behind me as I looked into the mirror, laughing a little, as though he had known about this all along. He was worried for my sake though. Who wouldn't be. Gulp. We stood there in front of the mirror for a while and then I felt indignant because it wasn't going away. In fact, it seemed to be getting dark redder as the blood rushed to my face from frustration and lateness.

I stomped into the dark kitchen of his little house to be indignant, but then opened his freezer, grabbed a bag of frozen peas, and smacked them onto the bottom half of my face. I stood staring at the inside of the open door of his freezer, stacked with numerous things. The kitchen was black except for the frosty light coming from the back of the freezer. I sighed. My face stingily accepted the cold from the peas.
PBF came and stood in front of the door and put his face close to mine (on the other side of the peas) and touched my ear and made a little speech and we laughed helplessly a little and I iced my face as well as I could with the cold, cold vegetables. They made it feel better and get less red. And everything was all right, and I went to where I was going.

Thank you frozen peas. I like to eat you sometimes too.
And thank you PBF for touching my ear and being leveled while I was freaking out.


up next: I'm thankful for Regina, as long as her concert doesn't suck, which I know it totally won't.