Every woman with an imagination dreams of being transported to another world. The idea of slipping into another realm is intoxicating and magical. Or at least it was, until it happened to me.

See, one late night while looking at the impressionism exhibit at the museum, I got sucked into an oil painting, and yet, inside the painting, I still had bacne.

It started as just a regular day musing to my equally bookish best friend about how I’m so sick of my job and my life and I wish I could live like the classically beautiful girls in the paintings. Then, as I clumsily tripped over the guardrail protecting the artwork and expected to get scolded by the guard as I thudded into a work of priceless art, I found myself, as one often does, inside the world of the painting.

At first, I was enraptured, but I soon realized it was not quite as ethereal as it seemed. Sure, a boy in a cropped coat and trousers handed me a glass of champagne and a bowl of fruit, and I was surrounded by beautifully embroidered divans and chaise lounges. When I went to examine my face in the mirror, it was the same. A bit more glowy and smoothed in the soft light of the summer day, but still me. But when my gaze fell to my porcelain shoulders, I found myself still covered in gross bacne!

I’m sorry, but what? I thought that shit was supposed to be edited out.

Why on earth, when I was placed in this beautiful realm, with curls falling around my face and a period-specific dress on my body, would I retain my devastating back acne?! What kind of sick curse was laid upon me?

When I asked the other women with amazing skin in the painting about their daily skincare routine, they were just like, “I’m sorry, what?” and went back to eating fruit.

Look. Until you have experienced it, you really have no idea. The people in this fanciful world filled with pasty women of leisure from the 19th century certainly don’t have any face wash with salicylic acid in it, so I guess I’m pretty screwed.

For now, I’ll just sob softly while Frédérique asks me, “Qu’est-ce que vous avez besoin?” and tries to comfort me with a ripe peach.

I won’t eat it, or any sugar right now, because despite being in a beautiful painting, with no other worries or obligations, my back is still covered in vicious, bleeding acne.