Dear Teen Me, from Author Nikki Loftin (THE SINISTER SWEETNESS OF SPLENDID ACADEMY)
Dear Teen Nikki,
Do you know you have a mustache?
Of course you don’t. You’re blissfully unaware of the caterpillar growing over your lip, creeping along your face, darker and darker every day. You don’t even see it when you look in the mirror.
But you’re a junior in high school now, and all that’s going to change. From now on, when you look in the mirror, all you will see is facial hair. 
It will happen right outside the band hall, in between sixth and seventh periods. That you’ll still remember this, twenty-five years later, should frighten you. The Mustache Reveal is going to leave a long-lasting mark.
You’ll be standing in a group of friends – some guys, some girls – talking. Then Kenny Clausen will turn to you, squint at your face with those so-cute blue eyes you’ve been crushing on since you were nine and say, seemingly out of the blue: “Hey, Nikki. You’ve got a mustache.”
You’ll wipe at your face, thinking, “I haven’t had milk or Kool-Aid today.”
“I don’t have a mustache,” you’ll say.
“Yes, you do,” Kenny will say, and he’ll REACH FOR YOUR LIPS. (Those lips you’ve been dying for him to kiss for an eternity.) “Right here.”
And suddenly, you’ll feel it. A giant, hideous creeping thing, perched above your lip, drooping downward at the edges, like those poisonous caterpillars that drop from the trees and land on you, stinging you so viciously you feel it for hours.
No wonder, you’ll think later, crying into your ice cream. No wonder he’s never kissed you. He was afraid of your Sasquatch Stache.
You’re gonna feel the sting for decades, honey.
A Mustached Tom Selleck (from jack.radio.com)
For the rest of that day, and a few days more (until you get to the grocery store and discover the mustache bleach aisle) you’ll wander through the halls at school with a hand or a book or a lunch tray in front of your face, sure that you look like Tom Selleck.
Teen Nikki? You. Do Not. Have. A Mustache.
Not a Tom Selleck one, not a Mark Twain one, not even a Frida Kahlo one.
Sure, maybe there’s a little bit of fuzz there, but it’s not anything anyone else would notice.
Unless that someone was looking very, very closely at your lips. (And WHY would someone be looking that closely at your lips? Mm hm. I’m just sayin’.)
And here’s what I want you to know: while you will remember this as one of your most humiliating memories of all time — and you feel certain everyone in the hallway went home and wrote about it in their diaries — no one else thought twice about it.
Not even Kenny Clausen.
That’s the thing about being Teen Nikki. Or Teen Anyone, for that matter. Everything is dramatic. Everything is life or death. Everything is A Majorly Big Deal.
Try to move on. You’ll be much happier if you learn to let some of these things go.
Chillax, as they will say someday in the future.
And about Kenny Clausen being afraid to kiss your giant caterpillar lip?
Turns out, that wasn’t the case at all.
Mm hm.
Old Lady Nikki.
Old Lady Nikki isn’t saying whether or not she got to kiss Kenny Clausen after all, but YES SHE DID! She writes funny and sometimes scary books for middle-grade readers, and is represented by Suzie Townsend of Fineprint Literary Management. Her debut novel, THE SINISTER SWEETNESS OF SPLENDID ACADEMY (Razorbill), will hit the shelves in Summer 2012. www.nikkiloftin.com
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I hope you gave Kenny Clausen a hard time before you let him kiss you!
Oh, Nikki, this is wonderful! It was so hard to see myself clearly as a teen — always looking for what others saw. And I love a happy ending!
Hilarious and adorable letter. Love it!!
I don’t think Kenny deserved the kiss! LOL
Hmmm…so I have some guesses about Kenny…brilliant post, Nikki.
Ah, Nikki! What a fun, embarrassing memory. If we forgot the self-conscious torment of jr. high, we’d be lousy parents and lousy writers.
Nikki, Teen Kim thanks you! Tommy No, got me in the hall one day too, and honestly I’m still self conscious about my mustache. That was until I read your letter!
Nikki,
Such a great letter! Took me right back to all those embarrassing, self-conscious moments we all had as teens. Funny and sweet and oh, so true.
Oh, Nikki~
This made me laugh out loud!
I, too suffered from the teenage-girl mustache until I discovered bleaching and waxing (and later, lasering…) and completely felt your young pain. I agree with Shelli–not sure if he deserved a kiss, lol! Thanks for making me smile today.
You all rock! Thanks for your encouragement. Teen Nikki could have used it long ago. Where were you all then?
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to suffer. I’m also glad I made y’all laugh.
Now I have to go tweeze or something. ;P
That is so funny Nikki – and old Nikki certain has a fair amount of insight about Kenny’s lip staring observations. Great post.
HAHA! Great letter to Teen Nikki. Kenny got a kiss?! I think he really WAS looking too closely at your lips.
Oh god, I can relate! Junior high was rough before I discovered personal grooming. YAY YOU for kissing Kenny Clausen!
This made me flashback to the time in 7th grade when a boy told me I had hairy arms. So for a few weeks when I was 12 or 13, I bleached my arm hair. He also told me I had a big nose. But then again, I’d broken up with him three times the year before, so maybe I can understand him being a little upset with me.
haha I didn’t even notice arm hair until I was 30. Probably good. I would have spent my college fund on it.
Oh Teen Nikki. You poor, wonderful thing. I can so relate to this hair horror! It gets better, promise. Thank you for such an adorable and hilarious letter, Nikki!
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