I had been introduced to the world of piercings when I was nine. Granted, they were simple lobe piercings, typical for any girl of that age, but I was fascinated by them. Those piercings, and the next two sets of piercings, were done with a piercing gun at a shop in the mall, which I didn't know until much, much later was a very bad idea. I was very lucky in that none of the piercings ever got infected or got compacted into my ear, and actually healed very nicely. Unfortunately, the piercings in my right ear are slightly lower than the ones in my left. It's not that visible unless you look really closely, but since I know it's like that I get weird about it sometimes.
At A Glance Author Ilyssa IAM Ruby Tuesday When A week ago Artist Paul Studio Now or Never Tattoos and Body Works Location Staten Island, NY In any case, right after I got my third lobe piercings, at the tender age of thirteen, I was itching to get my cartilage pierced. My mother and my father had an aversion to them because of their supposed tendency to get really infected, and also because of the risk of keloids and scarring. I tried to convince them to let me get it done for the next five years, but to no avail. Finally, the glorious day arrived that I turned 18, and I could legally go and get it done! Of course, I could have gone someplace seedy and gotten it done a lot sooner, but I didn't want to risk any infections. I decided to wait until I could legally walk into someplace professional and have it done that way.
One of my friends, whom I had known since my sophomore year of high school, recommended this place called "Now or Never Tattoos" to me, and told me that a piercer named Paul worked there and worked wonders. I had seen the great piercings that she had gotten from him, and so I went on his website and checked out some of his work. It was absolutely fantastic! And so, I decided to take her up on her advice, considering how many great piercings I was seeing, and I ventured to the parlor one lazy afternoon. Paul was exactly as she had described him: he was extremely polite, very friendly, and had a great sense of humor. Most importantly, he was very clean and very knowledgeable. He kept changing his gloves every few minutes, in order to prevent cross contamination, made sure that everything was sterile, and answered every question that I had without condescending to me. And believe me, I had a lot of questions! I realized at this point that if I got pierced by him, there was about a .00000001% chance that something would go wrong with the piercing. However, since my parents had lodged the thought of disaster into my brain since the age of 13, I was still very, very nervous.
After prepping the instruments that he would be using, he placed a flashlight behind my ear. When I asked him why he was doing that, he told me it was so he could make sure there weren't any nerves where the piercing was going to go. After he was done with this, he marked my ear with a purple marker. When I looked in the mirror, I saw that the mark was a little higher than I wanted it to be, so I asked him if he could please move the mark down a little bit. I apologized for being a pain in the ass, but he laughed and told me that it was my ear and that it was me who was going to get the piercing. After he marked my ear the second time, it was in the perfect spot, and so he set up the clamp on my ear. I think the clamp hurt more than anything else, to be honest.
Finally, he picked up the needle out of a dollop of bacitracin-looking stuff, asked me if I was ready, and when I nodded, he pushed the needle through. There was no pop, and I didn't feel any pain: the only thing I really felt was the rush of blood to my ear, which made it really warm. He then put in the jewelry, which was a captive bead ring with a small red jewel in the bead, and made sure that it was tight. Then, he asked me many, many times if I was okay to stand up, and then I walked to the front counter with him. He explained to me the after-care process in great detail, and continued to answer every random question that popped into my head. We were so lost in conversation that we almost forgot to have me pay for the procedure!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of my first major piercing. I'm pretty sure it's not going to be my last.