The thing about glitter is, if you get it on you be prepared to have it on you forever because glitter is the herpes of craft supplies.

Martin uses a deliberately shocking simile to capture a familiar, mundane frustration: glitter’s tendency to spread, cling, and reappear long after a craft project is finished. The joke hinges on incongruity—pairing an innocuous art material with a stigmatized medical condition—to heighten the sense of inevitability and loss of control. Beyond the punchline, the line reflects a common comedic strategy in Martin’s work: compressing an observation into a crisp, quotable analogy that turns everyday experience into a memorable image. Its popularity also owes to its practical truth; many people recognize glitter as a near-impossible mess to fully remove.