I'd like to consider myself a fairly experienced piercee. I've had thirteen different piercings to date, and each has been a pleasurable experience. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the rather weird experience of leaving ice cream tracks.
At A Glance Author Miz Dragon Contact Miz Dragon@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Bear Studio True Blue Body Piercing Location Austin, TX I recently moved to Austin for college and wanted quite badly to obtain an apprenticeship here. The first shop that I visited was - out of sheer luck - True Blue Tattoo and Body Piercing on Red River. Lucky me - within a few weeks, I landed an apprenticeship with one of THE best piercers in the United States: Bear. (Many of you have heard of him.) I feel extremely honored to be working with him and look forward to our many long hours together.
Anyway, I have all kinds of crazy ideas concerning what I'd like to do as far as piercings are concerned, but I'd never found anyone that I'd TRULY trusted enough to put holes all over my body, much less my face. (I'm not the cutest thing in the world, so all I need is someone to make me look even worse, ya know?) Then, of course, all of that changed when I met Bear. I talked over some of my ideas with him, and he seemed genuinely flattered that I wanted him to do all these things for me. And, of course, he would be more than happy to oblige.
One day about three weeks ago, while at work, we were talking about doing my venoms. He asks me, "Well, when do you want to do it?" So I said, "Now is as good a time as any, don't you think?" That was all he needed. He said, "You know what to do; run what we need through the Statim and we'll do it." So, I went to the sterilization room, excited as all hell, and prepared the tray. For verification, I brought it to him to show him what I'd put into it. He nodded (he's always telling me that I'm ten steps ahead of him), and I put the tray in the Statim and started the cycle.
By the time that I had started the cycle in the Statim, taken my gloves off, washed my hands, and returned to the front counter, I realized that three separate groups of people had walked into the shop. Having lined up two navels and a tongue by the time the madness had ended, I had to remove my stuff from the Statim so I could sterilize the customers' things.
After those three piercings were done and business began to slow back down a bit, I asked Bear, "Do you want me to just put my stuff in a sterilization bag and save it for another time?" "No way," he said, "we're doing this tonight. Go ahead and run it back through." "What if we get flooded again? Tonight IS Saturday night on Sixth Street. It's a zoo." He smiled. "Don't worry about it, puddin'. We'll get it done."
So, finally, I got my stuff run through the sterilizer. I carried it into the piercing room, set up Bear's dental tray, and made myself comfy on the black recliner. He came in behind me and shut the door. "You nervous?" he asked. "Who, me?" I asked in reply. He just smiled.
First, I rinsed with Listerine for a minute or so. Then, he asked me to lie down so he could dry off and mark my tongue. He did so, then showed me the markings. I was happy with them, so we got started.
He explained the procedure to me (even though I needed no explanation; I'd seen a million tongue piercings); he would dry my tongue back off, put the sponge forceps on, I'd feel a little prick of the needle as he aligned it, I'd take a deep breath, release it very slowly, and somewhere in that release the needle would go through. He did, I did, and it did.
My eyes began to water a bit, but it actually hadn't hurt. "You okay, girl?" he asked. "Yah I'm ohay," I said, trying to talk around his hands. "You still wanna do the other one?" "Well hell yeth," I said. He laughed.
BAM! There went the second one. As he threaded the ring behind the needle, he said, "You are one tough cookie, girl."
After it was all over, I stood up, a bit dazzled. I walked over to the full-length mirror and gawked at my newly-adorned tongue. (I thought having one was cool, but having three is WAY better!) I turned back to Bear, smiling. He stood there with his arms open. I walked over to him and gave him a big "bear" hug. "Thank you so much," I said, "I love it." "It was my privilege," he replied. "No, it was mine."