March 10, 2006, it's my 26th birthday and going well so far. It's been one of the best birthday's I've had in a long time. My friends are with me and we are celebrating like there's no tomorrow. I call the Tempe shop to make sure Chris is working. The conversation went something like this: "HTC of Tempe, this is Chris, how can I help you?" "Hey Chris, its me, just calling to see if you are working tonight." "Hey birthday girl, how's it going? Yeah I'm here tonight, so just come on down and we'll get you pierced." "Thanks Chris, I'll see you soon." I'm excited for a couple reasons. The biggest one being that I am finally going to be getting my beloved wrist piercing. It's something that I've wanted for almost eight years and I feel that I am finally ready for one.
At A Glance Author Frog Queen Contact Frog Queen@bme.anon IAM frog_queen80 When Three months ago Artist Chris X Studio HTC Location Phoenix and Tempe So we get down to the shop and go through all the proper paperwork to do a piercing. Chris has a couple people ahead of me. I tell him not to worry; we're in no hurry. I actually like being one of the last people Chris does because then we can sit and talk or shoot the shit without worrying about other clients. So he does his business and decides to go outside and smoke. I join him and CJ while my friends stay inside. We talk about how my birthday is going, if I feel older and if I'm excited about getting a new piercing. Of course I am! We discuss future piercings I want as well. Then he tells me some of the stipulations of doing a wrist piercing on me. The first thing he told me was that if ANYONE asked this was a TEMPORARY piercing. He didn't want to be doing eight million of these a week. He then told me that if at anytime he told me it had to come out, I had to take it out or he would never pierce me again. He had told me of horror stories of surface piercings that people try to keep and the nasty scars that they can cause and the risks and problems that can occur. I had also set my own rule. A three-strike rule. I decided that if I hit my piercing three times, it would come out. Once I agreed to all of this we headed inside so Chris could get the room set up. He calls me back and I look at my friends. Neither one of them wants to go back with me so I call them pansies and walk to the room. Chris has all the stuff set up and when I see it my adrenaline starts pumping. He then takes off the gloves he's wearing and puts on new ones, opens up the packages so that everything is accessible to him, changes gloves and asks me if I'm ready. "No, but lets do it." It's my standard reply to that question. I'm never fully ready to do what I'm about to do, but because I want it, I'm going to do it!
I start to sit, but Chris tells me to stand straight with my hands at my side. He kneels down and works his magic with the purple ink and toothpick. He makes marks, has me move my wrist around, cleans off the marks, makes some more and is finally happy with where the placement is. He tells me to look at it and ask if I like where the markings are. I tell him he's the expert and if he thinks they look good, they are good. So I sit down on the table and put my wrist on my leg. Chris then takes off his gloves again and puts new ones on and moves over to my left side. He then picks up the needle and for the second time that night, works his magic. He pinches my skin, getting a feel for things, moves the positioning of his body so that he's standing at an odd angle, but it works for what he's about to do. I can feel the needles point against my skin. He tells me to take a deep breath in and let it out slowly. Again. On the second breath out I can feel the needle go through. This time I actually watched him worked. It was pretty awesome to get to watch. So there I am with this needle sticking out of my arm. Chris grabs the surface bar, double-checks that the one disk is on there tightly and proceeds to follow the needle through with the surface bar. Once it's in, he screws on the second disk, cleans up some of the purple marker, tells me happy birthday, and ask if I like it. We walk out to the lobby, my friends pay him (cause that's what they got me for my birthday) and we chat for a few more minutes before heading home.
I am excited and nervous all at the same time. My biggest worry is catching it on one of the cases at work that I'm constantly putting my hands into. So things were going really well. It wasn't as hard to sleep as I thought it was going to be. Soon I forgot that I even HAD a surface piercing. Then the swelling starting to go down and I started to catch it on the cases at work. Every time I put on a pair of gloves at work too, I would catch the end of the glove on my surface bar. So a week later I went back to Chris. I didn't want to lose it, so we moved it up and put it vertical instead of horizontal. This was so much better. I wasn't catching it, my gloves didn't bother it, and people seemed to stare at it more. I had such a diversified reaction with all the customers that came in. Some were just plain disgusted with it, others were interested and wanted to know where to get one, but for the most part people were just shocked that someone would do that to themselves. Every time people asked who did it, I would hand them a business card and tell them that it's not a piercing the studio does for just anybody. I then tell them that I've been going to the same shop for eight years and have been wanting this piercing for just as long and because I've been such a loyal customer, they agreed to do it for my birthday. I would go through this whole speech every time. I didn't mind though.
I never had any real problems. Strike one did come one Sunday morning. I was getting the store set up and put my hand into the corner case. When I extracted my hand, I managed to catch the surface disk on the top and rip it off (the disk, not the piercing). I grabbed my wrist, slid to the floor and silently screamed. When my stomach was done doing cartwheels I look at it and see that there is no damage, other then the disk coming off. So I pick it up, screw it back on and go about my day. With just a little more caution this time. Every time I go in to see Chris, he takes a look at my arm. Neither one of us can believe how well it's doing. So on May 20th, I go in to have my lobes stretched. Chris takes a look at my wrist and gives me the dreaded news. "Take it out." I looked at him with a pleading face and he tells me again to take it out. He points out the signs that he's been looking for and tells me that I need to take it out because it's rejecting. This isn't a complete shock to me because for a couple of days I had noticed that something wasn't quit right with my wrist. I go into the room with Kat (cause she's the one stretching my lobes) and sit on the table. She proceeds to take out my surface bar and then goes to work on stretching my lobes. Once she's done, she bags up my old jewelry and hands it to me. I tuck it safely away in my pocket, thank her for the wonderful job she's done and leave.
It's taken me a couple of days to write this because I get sad every time I think about my wrist or look at the place where it uses to be. I knew it wasn't going to be a long term piercing, but I had truly hoped it would last longer then two months. It was one of my most cherished piercings. I'm good though because I have plans for my little surface bar. It will not sit in a bag for long. Soon it will join two other surface bars and become part of a chest piece that I am working on.