Today I broke up with Proactiv.
And old P’ took it surprisingly hard.

So, I was clearing out everything from the cabinet under the bathroom sink, and somehow, I’m telling you, like six or eight or three-dozen of those little white bottles of the mail-order acne solution stuff had accrued there. Some of them had gotten together in the dark, down there, and mated, or maybe populated the space via some creepy spore-like process. I don’t want to know. What I do know, is that the shit’s expensive, and that it works no better at maintaining my sparkling fine complexion than the five-dollar stuff you buy at Harris Teeter.

So I went to the Proactiv website. Logged in to my account and searched and searched for the page from which you could cease, halt, all ordering of the stuff. No such page. So I grabbed my phone, hit the 800-whatever-whatever, and went back to cleaning out the bathroom.

A nice enough sounding woman answered the phone. She called up my account.
“Ms. Deaver, we have no record of your phone number, on file in your club membership. Would you care to add one?”
“Well, actually, no,” I said, “I don’t think so, since I’m actually calling to cancel my account.” I said this in a nice-enough voice, maybe a tad distracted, since I was now tossing other things from beneath the cabinet: old bottles of lotion with miniscule amounts left, tubes of this and that, expired ibuprofen, and I was marveling at all the junk a single person can collect in the course of a year. How complex can one person’s own body and physical conditions thereof be? Was I some sort of closet-hypochondriac? And good god, was I this vain regarding my damn looks?
Meanwhile, the Proactiv operator had started in on her, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that you’re canceling...” spiel. I only half-listened as she asked me why. I know computer scripts, and I was imagining the one in front of her, which required that she ask me this.
“Oh. Well,” I said, collecting all the tampons into one box. Those freaking buggers can scatter all over the place; I’m telling you if you’re not familiar, s’true. “Well, I guess it’s because-” I hadn’t thought about a concrete reason I could give her. I glanced over at the dozens of bottles of Proactiv acne treatment all lined up like soldiers in the brown cardboard box onto which I’d scrawled “Bathroom” in black Sharpie. I could survive in a bunker with blemish-free skin for years with that box. “Um, well. I guess it’s because I could buy the over-the-counter stuff and it works just as well.”
“So are you saying that the Proactiv isn’t working for you?”
“Well, no. That’s not it.” I stood up. The last thing I wanted was to get into some personal discussion about the degree of effectiveness of acne medication on my blotchy, frustrating skin with this woman. The last thing I wanted was to get into any sort of discussion with her, really. But the times when really elementary prevarication would smooth the way in life are precisely the times when I tend to just trip up and start telling the stupid, messy truth. Usually when I’m distracted by something else. “No, that’s not it. It’s just that I could just get stuff at the store,” I said, considering it honestly for a moment. Then I realized that she just needed an answer to fill in her stupid computer screen. “Oh. Well, you know? That’s fine. I guess I’ll just say that. It doesn’t work.”
This is when everything changed. Suddenly, the woman adopted a new tone.
“Well, Ms. Deaver.” Her voice was sad, disappointed, my sweet kindergarten teacher when no one in class would own up to stealing the cherry-scented Mr. Sketch marker from the set. “I really, really would hope that you would feel you could be honest with us about why you feel you need to discontinue your membership.” Was she going to cry? “I see here, you’ve been a member a really long time.”
What? Was she next going to remind me about my first really bad outbreak when I was nineteen? And how nothing would help? And how it was a shame that Proactiv hadn’t been invented yet, then? Was she going to bring up Nero, my first cat, dead these twenty years? The fact that I had eaten popcorn as part of my so-called nutritionally-complete dinner for the past four nights? What secret tool did this woman not have in her arsenal?
And what fricking nerve? I mean, Jesus.
I reminded myself that she was just a telephone operator who probably hated her job. I would not be that asshole. Further, I would not let her get under my skin, let her ruin my pleasant detachment. I tossed the box of reunited Tampax into the cardboard box, and said evenly,
“Uh, you know? I guess it’s just because there are other, cheaper things that work just as well.”
“Well, how long would you say you've been using these 'other products'?”
“What? Oh. Some months, I guess.”
And then she said, yes, I shite you not:
“Only a few months?”
“Well, months, years."
"And are they honestly as effective as Proactiv?"
"Again, I...yes. Yes, they're better. I really want to cancel this membersh—this account.”
And then, just as she’d arrived, the ghost of my kindergarten teacher Reborn as Condescending Saleslady disappeared. Her voice was crisp, officious.
“Okay, well. I’ll cancel your membership, then. Effective August first. Is there anything else I can do for you, today?”
“Uh, no.”
“Okay, then. Goodbye.”
And she. Hung up. On me. Which is fine. I got to finish up with packing the bathroom stuff, and move on to the kitchen, which was the real bear.