At A Glance
Author	shikitohno
Contact	shikitohno@bme.anon
IAM	shikitohno
When	Two years ago

So, now I'll tell you of my rather foolish, and miserably failed attempt at stretching. To start, I had had each of my lobes double pierced with a gun, at probably a 16 or 18 gauge. I know, not the brightest move, and it got me kicked out of one house temporarily at the age of 13 or 14. They healed generally well, considering that they were gunned.

One summer day, two years ago, I walked into my local record store. Now, having read all the experiences on BME that I have, I know that this really isn't the ideal environment in which to be purchasing my jewelry. Well, I get even more foolish. I notice that there is a little black acrylic thing, which is quite a bit larger at one end then it is at the other. Guessing, I'd say that the difference was from 14 to 10 gauge.

My interest thoroughly aroused, I inquire what such a thing is for, and how much it cost. The cashier ,a woman named Beth, whom I much admired at the time, and was the only modified person I knew at the time, tells me that they're for stretching your ears, and cost $6.25. Somehow, I know the exact cost, but still can't tell you what month this happened. Funny how memory works, isn't it?

Well, as luck would have it, I had something around $5.25 on me at the time. Determined that I was going to get these, and having cursed myself for getting the biggest pizza I could, and paying in advance, I went on the prowl for money. Walking around town with my friend Roger, I picked up maybe 25 cents, and he gave me another 30 or so. Apparently, he thought that this would cause me great pain, and was determined to see me go through with it.

Telling me that his lawyer uncle happened to have his office right down the road, Roger said that we could get the last forty-five cents off his uncle, who surely had enough money that he wouldn't miss such a small amount. Returning triumphant, we marched back to the store, Soundtrax, and announced my intention to buy that taper. It wasn't actually a taper, but a spiral, but we didn't have a clue. Had I bought this after discovering BME, I probably wouldn't have bought it. For one thing, it was acrylic, and for another, I received no o-ring.

Well, seeing as how ignorance is bliss, I happily left the store to pick up my pizza, dreams of earrings, the size of which bore no relation to the largest end of my spiral, floating through my head. The pizza picked up, I went back to my friend's house, also my next-door neighbor, where I was wasting away the day, awaiting my parents return. Somehow, that signified fun to me.

I had taken out my earring, and just started shoving that spiral through. My neighbor's mother came home from work, and asked that I stopped. She told me that she really didn't mind (my neighbor herself would go on to stretch her lobes), but didn't want my parents to get angry with her. That sounded reasonable to me, so I put my earring back in, and waited for the parents to return.

Finally, they came home. I asked my mother what she thought of me stretching my ears. What she said amounted to me being quite sick, and that she didn't care. I didn't mind the first bit, and had been hoping for the last, and set off for my bathroom with glee, spiral in hand. Now, of course, comes the warning. I did something stupid. You shouldn't copy what I did, and if you don't know how to stretch properly, and can't be bothered to learn, you should either have a professional do it for you, or not do it at all. The second would probably be best if you're so lazy that you can't read enough to learn how to perform something so simple, let alone care for it.

Ideally, I would have lubed up the taper with something water-based, and taken a hot shower. That wouldn't have been stupid though, so you can assume that I didn't do things quite ideally. I also wouldn't have stretched as quickly as I did. It's recommended that you don't skip gauges. I didn't even know what gauges were, and skipped two in one go. I'm lucky that this failed in the manner it did.

Well, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and just shoved it right through. In about five minutes, I stretched from a moderately scarred 16 gauge, to a luckily relatively undamaged 10 gauge. Now, my ear not only burned, it throbbed. It also swelled quite a bit, and turned a loved shade of red. Still, I figured this was normal, that I was unique, and above all, that there was nothing wrong with any of what I had done.

I watched some TV, and went to bed. The next morning, the spiral was nearly half out when I woke up. I shoved it back in, and this time there was no pain, it slid in easily. Thinking nothing of this, I went about a normal Saturday. Later when I took a shower, I took the spiral out for a brief moment whilst drying my hair. And suddenly, I thought it was so awesome that if I aimed the hair dryer at my left ear, I could feel it behind my ear.

Thinking I was on to some sort of marvelous sensory experience never before encounter, I went to sleep very happy. Before I fell asleep, the spiral came out completely though, and I shoved it back in. Again, no problem. The next morning would prove to be a different story.

I wake up, run my hands over my face, through my hair, and across my ear, as if suspecting it had disappeared somehow over the course of the night, and needing to verify for myself that it hadn't. Satisfied in knowing my ear was still attached to my head, I tugged on my spiral. Well, I tried to, but tugged on the lobe from which it had fallen out.

Frantically, I looked for my spiral. Alas, it was lost in the pit that is my bedroom, and hasn't been found in numerous cleanings, even two years after the fact. This blow to my plans, along with the need to be allowed in my other house, led me to retire all four of my lobes, which was probably a good move anyway. Fortunately, I have since found BME, and plan to have my lobes redone, and stretched like mad. Properly this time, though.

To sum things up, don't buy acrylic jewelry, if you do, don't buy it from a record store (not the cleanest, I might add), and definitely get o-rings. Also, take your time, take a shower, and buy some lube. It might not cost you, like in my case, but just search for "blow out" in the BME wiki, and see what you're avoiding. It's definitely worth the time, and next time, I'm going to take the time.