Alright, so I had 9 years of catholic school and grew up in a small city. You damn piercered people are psychos, right? Oh no...no no no..
At A Glance Author Shannon Contact Shannon@bme.anon Artist Jim Melotte Studio Avante Garde Location West Allis, WI So I had been piercing my ears since I was 13 or so, big whoop. My eighteenth birthday present to myself involved a "last supper". My tongue piercing appointment was at 6:30pm.
6:00 pm: To Burger King I go! It's applesauce for me for the next few days! So that's no big deal; didn't hurt, etc etc. That story is no fun!
So I move to Milwaukee for college in fall 1999. Two months later I see an ad in The Onion for a piercing shop that pierces almost anything for $35 and under. Sweet! Twenty minutes later, I'm there. (okay, so I get lost for a while inbetween there, but anyway..) I walk in and meet Jim Melotte. I talk to him for hours and continue going there everytime I am bored for a few weeks. I learn that he is the only "Master Piercer" (30+ years of piercing) in Wisconsin, that he has a couple more stores around the area, that he was interviewed my Milwaukee Magazine, that they are so busy some days that they do over forty piercings between nine and nine, that he's on the board of health and safety yadda yadda for the licensing of piercing places... (add in other advertising here)
I eventually made myself into an unpaid advice girl for anyone that comes in asking about pain and healing on anything I've gotten (which was little at the time). I tend to annoy any customer that comes in for a non private area piercing by asking if I can watch. I've seen so many things pierced, I started wondering if I wanted to learn...either way. I see the gloves going on, tools coming out of sanitation bags, jewelery being soaked in cleaners, the repeated "are you alergic to iodine" question, and "the breathe in breathe out" right before the piercings. Wow, its perfect. I decide that this is the place to get pierced. Avante Garde.
So during the next (near) two years, I venture anywhere between a half hour and two hours to see Jim in West Allis whenever my friends or I want to get pierced...or if I'm bored. I end up with a bridge, an eyebrow, a septum, a second in my tongue, a labret, four in my belly button, a hood, and a triangle. Add on eight in my ears and my first tongue. Thats twenty...hehe...my parents just LOVED me. Then I take some time off over winter 2000 and this spring..and procede to get bribed out of most of them by my father. THEN I promise not to ever get pierced again....or at least anything he can see. I'm left with my all of my ears, my (hidden) septum, my two tongues, a bellybutton, my hood, and my triangle.
So here I am..the first day of summer, I'm bored, I haven't gone to sleep yet, and I start summer semester in less than a week. My ex-boyfriend and hopefully soon to be not ex tells me I should get my nipples pierced. "Not in a million years!" I say.
..so a few hours later I'm sitting on this damn table taking off my shirt. Okay fine...so I sat around talking to Jim, Brent, and Louie for damn near six hours about the pain and stuff before I'm actually SITTING on the table...bah, close enough. Fifty bucks for both, INCLUDING jewelery...not bad at all.
I was scared out of my mind; not necessarily of the pain, but I can't deal with the light-headedness afterwards. And I get SO nervous, plus I had to get naked in front of Jim again. Alright, anyway, I take off my shirt, get marked, okay it, and lay down. I close my eyes and have both Jim and Brent each poking around at a nipple. I told them to do it as fast as humanly possible because it gave me less time to freak out or back out. I get clamped and tell them "none of this breathe in, breathe out shit! JUST DO IT!!" So they did. A few seconds later I am gasping in pain, stop mid-gasp, and say, "hey, that wasn't bad at all!" The jewelery goes in and I'm all set! I had already read the care sheet about nine hundred times and have had plenty surface piercings before...I'm out of here and off to find the ex! Ha! That wasn't hard...I was so proud! Hell, I still am. I can't believe I did it. I always told everyone I wouldn't ever do it. I hated it, thought it was stupid, etc. I think they're damn neat!