Guns and Needles

I got my first piercing when I was six.

I am not six here.

Back then in 1978 (eek), you got your ears pierced in the doctor’s office, and my mother took my to Dr. Cassidy for the procedure.  I was very nervous, petrified of the pain.  When Dr. Cassidy took the felt tip marker to draw the dot where he was going to put the earring, I cringed away in pain.  The thought of a piercing gun being aimed at my head did not fill me with confidence. The result of said cringing:  a pen mark across my face, from ear to nose.  Luckily it was just marker, because had it been the earring gun, I would have been the lucky recipient of the world’s first cheek piercing. The next memorable piercing experience happened my sophomore year of high school.  My best friend Michelle and I decided that we simply had to have our cartilage pierced.  Being 15, we decided the best place to have this done was a combination Chinese jewelry/imitation handbag/bong store on Broadway.  Ear piercing (regardless of where on the ear the piercing was) was about $14 for two, so Michelle and I chipped in the big bucks and went to each get our upper left ear pierced.  

Please do not mention the grays, thank you.

When we went in, the reputable piercer asked up how old we were.  In hindsight,we should have lied, but we didn’t.  When we admitted we were 15, he handed us a badly photocopied piece of paper and told us we would need parental permission.  We walked out, bummed to the max.  I don’t remember if it was my brilliant plan or Michelle’s, but we walked around the corner, signed each other’s mothers’ names, and came back, permission slip in hand less than a minute later.  Yes, we were very tricky.

 We then felt it necessary to come up with a story about how we only lived around the corner (an obvious lie by the addresses on our papers) and that how our mothers were hanging out together (another lie) but they couldn’t make it, so they just signed and let us come back. I don’t think the merchant cared.  He took our $14, loaded the piercing gun, and shot us both.   Our punishment:  I couldn’t sleep on that side of my head for a year. Five years later I got my nose pierced.  This was pretty avant garde in 1992 when only Indian women had it done.  I felt like a badass.  I felt so badass in fact, that a few months later, I got a second nose piercing in the same nostril.  I experimented briefly with having a third nose piercing on my other nostril – a holy trinity of nose piercings so to speak – but I felt like it was overkill. I got my dibbit pierced (y’all call it a tragus, but I’ve

"Dibbit" is a much cuter word than "tragus."

always called it a dibbit, so deal) pierced two years later, and this was my first piercing the modern way, with a needle instead of a piercing gun.  Because the needle is so sharp, it hurt so much less that I literally got up off the piercing table thinking it was done, with the needle stuck in my ear!
 The lip ring came next, again done with a needle.  The only downside is that I had to carry around a little bottle of Listerine and swish and spit every hour or so per piercers orders.
 I don’t really remember when I filled my earring from initial piercing to the cartilage, put some how I filled them in.  At one point, I got my bellybutton pierced, but then I put on a whole lot of weight and got pregnant (in that order) and so bellybutton piercings weren’t really a good idea. I’ve never gotten my eyebrow pierced and I never will. I promised Nancy Gish, my Women’s Studies professor in college that I never would.  She had a bad dream about something horrible happening if I got my eyebrow pierced and made me promise I wouldn’t.  I promised her and I’ve never gone back on that promise.
 

I love my piercings and without them, I feel naked!

Why am I bringing up the saga of my piercings up?  Well, because I had to take them ALL out for my surgery.  I had to take them all out for my surgery last year, and so I know a reputable piercer that I trust.   My surgery is Monday, so I wanted to take them out Sunday… like as late as possible… like when no one sees me.

 Except Ed doesn’t work on Sunday so I had to TAKE THEM OUT TODAY!  Let me tell you, I hate it.  Tomorrow I have to go to church, go grocery shopping, and otherwise interact with the world without piercings.  No fun, I tell you, no fun. Once I’m healed from this surgery, I’m getting my bellybutton pierced (of course, being 42, no one will ever see it).  

But I’ll know it’s there… I’ll know!