It was my 20th birthday, and I had a good amount of birthday money on me. A large portion was spent on beer, because, of course, we planned to party. Five of us in two cars drove around wondering what we should do, that night before we settled down in my friend, Greg's, backyard to drink ourselves into a stupor.
At A Glance Author Severina Contact Severina@bme.anon When A year ago Artist Can't remember... Studio Some place off of a backroad Location Spring, TX Nikki, another friend, who's had more piercings than she's had birthdays decided we should go find a piercing shop she'd passed by a few times. We drove around the back roads of Spring for 20 minutes before we saw a neon "Tattoo and piercing" sign nailed to an old shack off one of the many dirt roads.
We pulled into the gravel "parking lot" and got out to inspect the place before we got anything done. It seemed to be a pretty decent place, although, the pool table threw us off a little. There was one room where the work was taking place, although it was not closed off (there was a reception counter like at the doctor's office), the guy that was doing tattoo work on a heavily tattooed gentleman, seemed to be very careful about being sterile, so we thought everything was ok.
We walked up to a woman that was working there and asked about prices for certain piercings. Nikki wanted her eyebrow done (again) and I wanted to get started on my ear cartilage plan. She informed us that it would be $20 for each piercing, and then inspected our IDs (which we took as a good sign).
We filled out our paperwork and waited for the guy to get done with his tattoo, on the rickety porch with our party who was already getting started the beer. While we waited, a big old grizzly bear of a man pulled into the parking lot and walked up onto the porch carrying a big cooler full of fish. We chatted with him a bit and he promised that he'd fillet some fish up for us and then disappeared into the back of the shack.
The guy was finally done with the tattoo (sorry, I can't remember his name so he'll be known as "The Guy") and walked out to the porch and said he needed to take a little break because he'd been tattooing for several hours. That was fine with us. One of our party (I think it was Greg) offered The Guy a beer, which he readily agreed to.
A red flag went up in my head and I shouted, "WHAT!? HELL no! I'm not getting pierced by someone who's been drinking. What the hell is wrong with you!?" He responded, "Ok! I'll save it for later!" I twitched slightly but figured since he didn't drink it yet, everything was going to be ok.
A few cigarettes and an odd discussion about Tinker Bell later, he decided he was ready and called be back. I sat down and he pulled out the tongs (the clamp...I like to call them tongs), the needle. Each of them was rapped and sealed in a sterile plastic bag, which he asked me to sign. Then he pulled out an extremely limited selection of barbells. I was really disappointed at that point, but I figured I could always change it out later, so I picked out something that was made for a belly button piercing.
Then he pulled out the felt tipped pen and we picked a place for it to be done (I planned on getting 2 more later, so I decided this one would be the one in the middle). He clamped, and since this was my second piercing I knew how to breathe properly for minimal pain, but I noticed that he didn't tell me how. That threw me off. He was also really shaky as he stuck the needle in which made it hurt more than it should have.
After it was done, I went out and sat on the porch with the rest of the bunch and Nikki was called in. As we were sitting around. waiting for her to be done, I found that had to go to the bathroom. I went inside the shack and asked the lady if they had a bathroom I could use. She told me that they didn't. Alright. Now I was outside wiggling around and resisting the urge to run behind a bush, while being poked and tickled by the guys. Nikki was taking a long time.
I looked inside and didn't see her, so I went back outside. She came out a few minutes later and when I asked her what took her so long she said, "I was in the bathroom." I was so pissed off. I told her what the lady told me and Nikki became enraged. To avoid any conflicts, we quickly left without our fish.
The next day I noticed he pierced off the mark, about 3 mm. He gave me a little pamphlet about keeping it clean, which I followed, yet for the next several months it was infected 50% of the time. I eventually took it out after 4 months, because it just wouldn't heal. I'm never ever getting cartilage done, again. I couldn't stand it. Nor am I going to a piercing shop in the back roads of Spring, Texas.