Working in a highly busy body piercing and alternative clothing shop for a year has always encouraged me to look for and experiment with different types of piercing-the stranger the better in many cases. There wasn't a lot I hadn't seen done, and had done myself. However, I found I was always looking for something slightly different, something special, something that would make people who saw it go, "wow!" (Not that I'm any kind of attention seeker, oh no...)
At A Glance Author Cat Contact Cat@bme.anon IAM spiky_kitten When A year ago
One of the two piercers at work was always on hand to feed my (slight) addiction for the new and intriguing. One fateful day, just before Christmas 2003, he brought in several photos of a girls tongue, upon which, he'd pierced her venoms. Throughout the day, I couldn't stop looking at these pictures and by the time we closed and headed off to the pub, I was utterly convinced that this was the one for me.
Given that I was warned about the general complexities of this piercing, I decided I'd speak to the girl who'd had it done already. She was highly enthusiastic about it, and mentioned that it "hardly hurt at all". 'Fabulous', I thought. By this time, she'd changed her bars down twice and her tongue was looking deceptively normal except for the two 16mm barbells through the sides (which were, incidentally, beautiful). She told me that I should totally go for it and I was completely ready to do it there and then, but then was brought back down to earth with a jolt...it was Christmas in 2 weeks, how would I be able to eat everything that I wanted to, if I had a massive bar in each side of my tongue?
And so, I waited, and waited, and waited...eventually, the new year flurry of navel piercings at work had died down and I was able to stand around and do nothing once again, and therefore decided that this was definately the time to go for it!
I've always preferred getting my piercings done in the comfort of my own home, as when they're done at work, it can be highly stressful spending the rest of the day working whilst in very attention demanding pain. So, along with pretty much everyone who worked there, we travelled to my house and set about preparing for the piercings. (As a note, I would NOT recommend getting your friends to pierce you unless they are highly trained, and even then, I would always say to do it in a professional studio.)
After I had my last meal-I thought at the time I was joking-we sterilised the bars and the clamps. I already had the centre of my tongue pierced and ended up having to put a 22mm barbell in there too, in order to prevent my tongue swelling over the top of my balls. And then it was time. I did have it frozen, and I was glad of it, as it had more of a placebo effect than any functional purpose. As the first needle went in I felt my mouth fill up almost instantly with blood. After the bar was in, it hadn't stopped. I then washed my mouth out, and it hadn't stopped. So I carried on washing my mouth out. There was so much blood we were unable to do the second one, as my mouth kept filling with the stuff!
When, six hours later, I needed to sleep and was still bleeding, I was getting severely pissed off! I managed to fall asleep though with my mouth open, just letting it run out, and yes, it was as gross as it sounds. Woke up in the morning with my tongue incredibly swollen on the one side, and it was covered in congealed blood...bleurgh!
My piercer came round again that evening, as I had spent the day having my hair dreaded, so I was NOT in the best of moods. We did all of the sterilising stuff again, went upstairs and pierced the second side. I was adamant that I still wanted it done, despite the fact that I had bled so heavily the first time. There is very little worse that having a tongue that's only swollen on one side. I was amazed-it hardly bled at all-no gushing, nothing-! It was then he admitted that he'd clipped the side of a vein. I had figured this out but it was still relatively scary to hear it aloud, as one hears so many horror stories of people hitting veins when they pierce.
It took me about 4 months to get the bars down to a 14mm. These were without a doubt the most painful and irritating piercings I've had to date, but I couldn't be without them now. They're beautiful, and different, and highly useful for scaring small children with...:)