For the longest time, I wanted a piercing nobody I knew had. I wanted something to make people say "Oh my God, didn't that hurt?" and "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" Mainly, I guess, it was to be different.
At A Glance Author Alyssa Contact spacecampblues@yahoo.com When A week ago Artist Meghan Studio Chelsea's bathroom Location Gonzales, LA It was my friend's birthday and we had just gotten back from a hardcore show and it seemed like everyone there had piercings. It seemed like a slap in the face to me that I didn't have any. I didn't even have my ears done. We were just hanging out and being bored so we decided to go to Wal-Mart. I got really excited because I had been wanting that piercing really bad so i knew that if we went, I could get some needles and jewelry.
All eight or nine of us piled into the car and I asked Meghan if she would pierce my smiley for me. Automatically she said yes. She pierced a couple other of my friends before so I was totally comfortable with her doing it. Another friend was completely against it and argued with us to not do it. Somehow, we ended up sneaking off to buy needles, matches, and latex gloves. The jewelry case wasn't open because it was about one in the morning so we just got some jewelry from a friend that was there. After we got home, Meghan, Chelsea, Alex, Jamie and I all ran to the bathroom and got ready to do it.
Meghan sterilized the needle and the jewelry and I started getting very nervous and shaking. My girlfriend's friend got his smiley done and said it was the least painful piercing he ever got so I wasn't nearly as nervous as I was before. After we sterilized everything, Alex sat on the side of the bathtub and held my hand, and Jamie did the same. Chelsea had my phone ready to take pictures. Meghan asked if I was ready and I said yes but we had to wait a minute because I couldn't stop smiling. I was so excited. After i calmed myself down, she put the needle to my smiley and said that on the count of three, she would push it through. I said Okay and she started counting, when she got to three, she pushed hard and we realized it wouldn't go through. She kept pushing and pushing and it just wouldn't go. That had to have been the most painful thing ever in my mouth, and I've had teeth pulled.
When we finally got it through, she spun the needle and then pulled it out and started to put the jewelry through. THE HOLE HAD CLOSED UP. She asked me if I wanted to pierce it again or just forgot about it. I was really close to saying just forget it but i figured that if the hole was already there and we had pushed it through once, it wouldn't be too bad the second time. Trust me. It was just as bad. Once we re-pierced it and put the jewelry in, I got up and showed it off to everyone. I had a very severe lisp but it was okay because I got my very first real piercing.
A few days later, it started to REALLY hurt and it got a bit of infection around it. The ring also started rubbing the inside of my lip and scratched the skin on the inside of my lip off. My skin started to grow through my jewelry and it hurt to touch it so I had to take it out. That probably hurt worse than the actual piercing did. Once i had it out, it bled a little bit but I was thankful to have it out.
My parents didn't know about it even though they're pretty okay with piercings. My brother came home one time with his lip, septum, nose, and eyebrow done. Definitely not on the same day but that just shows how okay they are with it. He had those done professionally and I didn't but that's the difference between the two of us. I was really scared to show them the smiley to ask for help because I got my lip done that weekend, too. They said that if they found another piercing, they'd make me take every single one of them out.
Later on after I move out of my parents house, I intend to repierce my smiley professionally and hope that it turns out a lot better than this experience did. While I really liked it, it was probably the dumbest thing I've done with needles and my face. I should have listened to my friend that was trying to tell me to not do it. Her sister's boyfriend got his smiley ripped out when he was younger so I would have probably listened or researched a lot more carefully on how to take care of it afterwards.