Year of Firsts: Piercings

I did this at the beginning of November, but it was a secret from the family until last week.  No one in my family has pierced ears. Not my sister, not my mother, not my grandmother, not my aunt, not anyone. Growing up, anytime anyone in or out of the family mentioned ear piercings my mother would take the opportunity to tell me and my sister exactly how terrible getting your ears pierced was, using words like "mutilation," "puss," "infection," and "agony." Then she would reach over and pinch our ears with her nails.  Sometimes if no one had mentioned piercings for a long time she would randomly just pinch us and remind us of the horror that awaited us if we tried to pierce our ears. And that was just for ears.  Nose rings would ruin your future and belly button rings would kill you outright.

She started this with us young enough that it actually worked.  No matter how many friends and strangers I saw walking around with beautiful earrings and perfectly un-diseased ears, I still had no desire to do it after I turned 18.  Or after 21.  Or 25.  I was pretty convinced I would die with un-mutilated ears.

But then the Year of Firsts came, and FriendJ was getting her nose pierced, and it seemed like a logical step.

I made the decision extremely last minute so as not to have time to back out of it. FriendJ had picked out a tattoo/piercing shop in Virginia (uuuuuuuugh VIRGINIA) and we went on a Friday evening just before closing and had a nice, long consultation with a patient  boy named Peter whose face was made 50% out of metal.  He spent a good amount of time reassuring me that Death was a negligible risk of ear piercings.  He was very kind.  He even gave me a small, round, pink stuffed creature to hold during the ordeal like a small child and he did not have a trace of mockery on his face.  Though any mocking looks could have been concealed by all the glinting metals.

Everyone had told me it hardly hurt at all, but I don't like seeing needles if they are about to go into my skin so I told Peter I would just keep my eyes shut while he made all his preparations.  This means I missed seeing what the needle looked like, which is best, because afterwards my friends told me that it was a hollow needle, and the largest they had seen.  I yelled a terrible word when the needle went through.  If the creature had been live instead of stuffed, I would have killed it brutally and barbarically. But I did not cry!  Even though it hurt worse than the worst I had ever imagined and continued to be agony filled as Peter said, "Okay! Now the other one!"

I want everyone to take a moment to think about how proud they are of me that I let him do the other one.

I continued to be in terrible pain for days, but I had completed a pretty big First! I had Overcome Fears! I had Defied Authority!

Things went remarkably well for 7 weeks, right up until I saw the Authority whose name is Mother, last week for our family vacation.  She took the initial news moderately well, although she did spent the next 5 days pinching my sister's ears at a new high rate.

I was pretty pleased with myself for proving her wrong.  Nothing terrible had happened! Everything was JUST FINE.

Until 5 days into the vacation at which point we were in the middle of the Caribbean Sea with no land in sight for two days, no internet and no phone, when my left ear began to swell grotesquely and hurt as though someone with strong fingers was pinching my ear.

The irony.

I kept it quiet for a few days instead of going to the ship doctor, because my favorite way of handling medical situations is to pretend they are not happening and assume they will go away. Of course, it did not go away. It continued to get worse and worse until I finally decided to take the earring out to clean and replace it and discovered that I could not get the earring out.  This was panic inducing and involved me locked in a hotel bathroom yelling incoherently for a few hours. The Authority had such a fit that my little sister ran away from the hotel.  She forgot her shoes, however, so she didn't make it especially far.

Eventually though, the earrings came out, gold set ones went in, and I am now mutilated just like everyone else normal.