Loyal TeenyManolites know that we’ve long kept a beady eye on the jaded escapades of debauched homunculus known as Elmo. The back alleys of Hollywood swarm with the tainted, broken bodies of those he has used and tossed aside.

We thought he was the only one. But we were wrong. So very, very wrong.

From McSweeney’s Internet Tendency comes shocking news that everyone’s favorite glutton, Cookie Monster, has come out of the closet about his biscuit abuse problem. It can be only a matter of weeks before he’s in a residential treatment program in Utah, getting busy with Lindsay Lohan behind the sagebrush bushes.

Me thinks me have serious problem. Me thinks me addicted. But since when it acceptable to call addict monster? It affliction. It disease. It burden. But does it make me monster?

Summer, it is a comin’.

And for me, that sometimes means breakouts. Yeah, I feel cheated. Here I thought at this age I would be way past the breakout stage of my life. But nobody told me that they never really go away. Was it a conspiracy or did they just not want to dash my hopes?

I have never suffered from acute acne, but as someone who played many sports as a teen and young adult, I got my fair share of blemishes, just because it wasn’t always possible to run and wash my face immediately after a game. As I get older, my crotchety skin has to contend with the combination of sunscreen and sweat. Which usually, it doesn’t like very much. And, add to that of course the periodic, erm, hormonally caused outbreak, and my acne spot cream can get used up pretty quickly.

Remember how we used to call the acne creams/lotions “zit zappers?”

Well, now they’ve got ones that acutally do zap blemishes with an electrical current. They are to be used only on specific types of blemishes, usually the reddish ones that swell and are painful. They have some sort of fancy scientific name, but I think you know the kind I’m talking about.

The FDA-approved Zeno Acne Clearing Device requires that you hold the tip to the affected area for two and a half minutes. It uses heat to destroy bacteria, and can be used multiple times in a 24 hour period. Reviews were quite positive on this product.

The also FDA-approved Thermaclear Acne Treatment Device uses the same principle to inhibit bacterial growth as the Zeno. The good news with this one is that it requires only a two second treatment versus the two and a half minutes for the Zeno. Reviews were a bit mixed on this one.

Keep in mind that the tips only have so many uses, and a replacement tip must be purchased, usually after 60 or 90 uses, depending on the model you buy.

Would you be willing to spend over a hundred bucks to zap your pesky pimples? And if you don’t ever have pimples, then just know that I secretly hate you. Or, you could just go ahead and keep using your regular acne-rescue operations and let other people use electricity on themselves in the name of beauty. Me? I might be willing to try it out. Hmmm, don’t I have a tax rebate in my future?