Vanity, Thy Name is Jason

For thirty-one years or so, I've had a somewhat unwelcome tenant perching just above the left side of my chin. This uninvited guest wasn't big enough to cause much stress, and never gave any signs of turning cancerous, so I left the harmless little mole where he was and went about my business. Although she'll swear up and down on a stack of Fitzpatrick's Color Atlas of Clinical Dermatology that she's never said anything about the matter, my wife was not as enthusiastic of a fan. Proudly disdainful of those stooping to methods of plastic surgery and resolutely unconcerned with mere outward appearances, I never once considered going under the knife for such a petty purpose.

But over the past six months, I'd been noticing a growing tendency to struggle with the little bugger during shaving sessions. I began creating new shaving schedules to work around the troublesome melanocytic nevus, letting my facial hair grow out for a week or two and shaving the entire beard off rather than staying clean-shaven for weeks at a time. Lately, even this cautious approach was leading to nicked neoplasms, with a rather copious amount of blood leaking out. Enough was enough. Forget about my looks, but spare me any more bloodletting.

Which is how I ended up getting my melanin-bubble removed Friday morning, after a quick shot of numbing agent to the lower lip area and a mercifully brief shaving excision through the use of a razor blade. Handed a package of band-aids and ointment and warned to stay out of the sun for a few months (yeah, right, like that's going to happen in Southern California), I was sent off with a slightly sore raised patch of skin where my old friend used to be. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to keep the little guy, as he was promptly sent off for biopsy treatment. In the meantime, I have the dubious honor of looking even more ridiculous now than I did before, thanks to a large circular bandage slapped above my chin. Just sign me up for the next season of The Swan.