I just got home. I changed into sweats and plopped down into a chair in the living room. Mom was watching the Tyra show. I should have known what I was getting myself into.

A young woman with Alopecia was talking about how commercials about hair made her sad.

“Okay, I can understand it being hard living with Alopecia, but don’t make it into a sob story and whine about commercials. That would be like me saying that commercials about sitting make me sad, since the invisible rash is on my butt today. Fuck, man,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Then the next girl came on. Tyra said something about how today’s show is about people living with debilitating issues, which sort of piqued my interest. And then the girl opened her mouth to tell her story.

“I don’t like my smile,” she said, as if the fact that she had a couple of crooked teeth was the most horrible thing in the world, as if she just couldn’t go on living with an imperfect smile.

I thought I might throw up. Seriously. How can you possibly sit there and dramatize living without smiling because you don’t like your smile, when there are so many people out there who actually have problems?

Now, don’t get me wrong. My little sister felt self-conscious for years about her smile, because she had an extra tooth and a few crooked teeth. But she sucked it up, got braces, and grew up to be the confident eighteen-year-old that she is today. (Her birthday was yesterday. Happy birthday again, little sis!)

I don’t exactly love my smile, either, but I don’t sit there and whine about it.

“What did you expect? It’s the Tyra show,” Dad said.

“Yeah, I know. I should have known better.”

We all dislike or even hate some things about ourselves. But demonizing these trivial things makes you look like an egotistic airhead. Hello, EVERYONE has imperfections. It’s what makes us human. Now, talk to me when you can’t walk because you have a degenerative disease, like Lou Gehrig’s or an especially aggressive form of Cerebral Palsy. Then, sure, go on TV in front of millions of people and talk about living with something that is debilitating. But don’t dramatize something that most people just deal with.