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Sometime during my freshman year of high school, my friend's mom told me I was lucky to have a mouth that is small when closed, yet which stretches widely when I smile. It was perhaps the weirdest compliment that I've ever received, but hey, I was straight out of middle school at the time. You'll take whatever you can get at 14.

The downside of the aforementioned ElastiMouth is that the corners of my lips have been flaking and cracking all winter, despite regular and liberal application of lip balm. I don't see anybody else holding a tube of Chapstick in her closed fist and smearing it in repeated circles around her mouth, but that's apparently what it takes. I need to be careful to make sure that I've grabbed a tube of lip balm from my bag and not a similarly-sized tube of tinted gloss, though, or I'll parade around looking like a four-year-old who's stolen her mother's lipstick and liberally applied it with toddler dexterity. So I guess the question becomes: would I rather risk looking like a preschooler, or a horse who has held a bit in its mouth for most of its life?