It was the day. Finally...finally I could get something pierced without my mother signing a consent form. She wouldn't be able to hold me back any longer, I was 18, an adult, and heading toward the piercing studio.
At A Glance Author Sara Contact Sara@bme.anon IAM Sara_Timberlake When A year ago Artist Wolfman (Tim) Studio Earth Moon Imports Location Wheelersburg, OH This was on my eighteenth birthday. I had been begging my mom for two or three years to let me get my lip pierced, and the answer had always been a quick and severe, "No." I had always joked about doing it on my birthday, never really meaning it, but here I was, calling up my friend to go with me well before noon on my big day.
The deal that I made with my mom was that if I was going to do it, she wanted to take me to the studio. She didn't want to come in, but she wanted to drive so she could see it as soon as possible. The place I was going to get pierced at, Earth Moon Imports, opens at noon on weekdays, and so we left my house at about 11:30. We got there right as they were opening, so luckily there was no one else in the store.
I nervously filled out the appropriate paperwork and paid my money. I followed the piercer into the little room designated for piercing and awkwardly sat down in the chair. This is when the real fear started. I couldn't breathe. My mouth was dry. I felt like I was going to throw up. My piercer gave me some water to drink, which helped significantly. He then started making small talk while he was opening everything up. I explained that I was terrified of needles, and he just sort of chuckled. Finally, he marked and cleaned my lip and put the clamps on. It was at this point that he realized that he had laid out a 16g ring instead of a 14, so the clamps were left in place while new jewelry was opened. (I can honestly say that the clamps were the worst part of the whole ordeal; they were very tight and painful.) Then we were ready to go.
I was clutching my friend's hand desperately, thinking that somehow this would counter the pain I was about to put myself through. He didn't count down or anything like that, which was what I was expecting. I had read so many stories on BME that said that the piercer would tell you to take a deep breath in or something of the sort, but that didn't happen with me. I'm actually very glad, as I think this would have made me even more nervous.
Anyway, I could feel the needle pressing against my skin. He asked, "Are you ready?" and as I was in the middle of saying, "I guess so," he did it. I felt a sharp feeling, not exactly pain but definitely close to it. It was a very strange sensation; I felt the needle forcing through each layer of skin inside my lip and finally it was through. It felt like it took ages, but really I'm sure it was less than a second. He put the jewelry in then, a captive bead ring that was rather large to allow for possible swelling, and then attached the ball, which was also quite painful. I didn't know it at this point, but I had saliva running down my chin. He said, "Sara, look at me and smile," and I did so, followed by him laughing a little and wiping my chin out with a paper towel. I guess my lip was so numb that I couldn't feel this, but after he cleaned me up I didn't do it anymore. He gave me the big speech about aftercare, and though I was trying very hard to pay attention, I had to call my friend later and ask her to repeat part of what he had said.
I thanked him, and went out to the car, where my mom was waiting. "What?" she said, "Did you chicken out?" I turned to look at her and was greeted by a face of shock. She said that I had been in there for less than ten minutes, so she assumed that I hadn't actually gone through with it.
My lip didn't actually swell much, but it did cause a few problems at first. For one thing, when I went out that night for dinner, I wasn't used to having a ring in my lip, obviously, and I kept getting my fork stuck in it, which would tug a little bit. I also had problems saying some letters, and my younger sister told people that I had suddenly developed a lisp. Other than that though, healing was uneventful.
I followed the aftercare to the letter. I washed my mouth out with Listerine after every meal, and used H2Ocean religiously. After a few days, I could speak normally again. One tip I found useful (my friend told me this the day before I did it) is to buy some straws and use them for the first few days while you're drinking. It's not so much of a problem if the glass is relatively narrow at the tope, but if it's very wide, the water tends to spill...a lot.
So, this story is titled "The Beginning of My Addiction" for a reason...only a few weeks after I got the right side of my lip pierced, I went back and had the left side done. Now, almost every time I come home from college and can make it to the studio, I get something else pierced. It was the best first piercing that I could have possibly hoped for. I'm attached to all my other piercings (no pun intended), but this one is, by far, the most important to me.