Cold Sores and Dry Shampoo

Pretty accurate description of how I looked that day.

It began innocently enough. A minor itch. A slight twinge. A little tingle. I started to fret. But maybe it wouldn’t happen this time. After all, I had gotten through other bouts of illness without developing one—maybe this would be one of those times.

Not so much.

At work, I felt the no-mistaking-it tingle that heralded the new arrival, and a look in my compact mirror confirmed what I already knew:  I was witnessing the birth of the world’s worst cold sore.

Fever Blister. Herpes simplex. It all sounds different to the ear but in the end, they are all the same—a gigantic cootie cluster on my lower lip, half an inch from dead center.

Maybe it wasn’t so much a birth as a coming home, however. After all, the only place I ever, ever get cold sores is in that very same spot. Same lip. Every time. What skeeves me out…