It's the one piercing I don't remember consciously having wanted and certainly one I never dreamt I'd end up getting. I'd seen them on other people, of course - after all, it's one of the commonest piercings these days. Somehow, I suppose that over a period of time, the sudden unexpected sight of one of those little shiny metal balls glinting away in the dark recesses of someone's mouth somehow struck a chord in me: I read up all about it here on BME, and one phrase seemed to stick in the mind...."This is a fun piercing"
At A Glance Author Don Contact donnyb@btinternet.com IAM Don Artist Lucy Studio Piercing World Location Nuneaton, UK Be that as it may, I couldn't quite imagine the folks at work seeing the 'fun' side of it - I mean whoever heard of a respectable professional guy in his fifties with a metal bar through his tongue? I had in fact tentatively broached the subject once before, at Toxic Shop, in Birmingham. "Sure , we do loads of them - we put a clear plastic retainer on the top so no-one notices, and you just swap it for a metal bar at the weekends and have some fun: we get no end of lawyers, businessmen..." he made it sound like the most natural thing in the world! So why not? I've never been one for doing things in half-measures, and one day at the beginning of December last year, I found myself looking through the venom gallery on BME. Wow! - I found out a bit about them and decided. I rang up my favourite studio - Piercing World, at Nuneaton - and asked. 'Sorry, we don't do them' was the reply. Apparently the problem was one of veins being in the way. F or a few moments, I was tempted to disregard the answer, and go elsewhere, but then having thought a little more I came to the realization that while venoms may look attractive, they'd be considerably less easy to conceal, and that was a major factor, work-wise. So, I rang back, booked myself in, got on my bike and hot-footed it over.
When I arrived, everything was all set up. I took a swill from the famous "This is the worst part" plastic cup-full of Listerine. Eurghhh. I had a second try, to see if maybe it might be an acquired taste. It isn't. Considering they're a multi-million-dollar company, I can't help feeling they might shell out a few bucks to pay someone to find an ingredient to make the stuff taste a little more palatable. I was marked up: I asked for a placement as far back as it would go, so I could hide it from prying eyes, and opted for a titanium barbell for the initial jewelry. I had the clamp put on, and although I'd been worried about having an involuntary reflex gagging reaction, that didn't happen. The needle went through with no more than a sensation of soreness - a bit like when you eat something hot and spicy. I rinsed out, dribbling uncontrollably rather than spitting, and was giving my aftercare instructions. Talk as little as possible, lots of ice-cold drinks.. water, soft dri nks, beer..."Beer?", I asked incredulously. "As long as it's ice-cold, yes". Perhaps this wasn't going to be so bad after all.
I'd prudently taken the week off work, and so although my speech was very slurred for the first couple of days, I got by. Eating, though, was something else again. The first couple of days were fine....iced water, soft drinks, soup.... But then I tried to graduate to something more solid - it was only pot noodles at first, but I soon found I'd lost the ability to eat properly. Everything just gave me the sensation of chewing cardboard. Maybe I was just too nervous of accidently hitting my tongue barbell against my teeth; I don't know. I just remember that during those few weeks around Christmas I was so miserable! I thought I'd never be able to eat food or taste anything properly ever again. I have never (before or since) come so close to taking a piercing out.
Originally I was told that the usual period for a tongue to heal sufficiently for a shorter barbell to be put in was two or maybe three weeks. I pop ped back to Piercing World from time to time to check on the swelling, but it turned out to be a total of five weeks before I could get mine downsized to a more comfortable shorter one!
It was some six or seven months later - this summer, in fact - that I first thought of stretching it. Getting a larger barbell I found was a bit problematical; mine was only a 1.6mm, and I could only find (on a day-trip to Birmingham) places that stocked a 2.4mm. While that may not sound a lot, in practice it proved, even with the assistance of tapers, an insurmountable problem. So in the end, disappointed though I was, I ordered from Cold Steel a 2mm barbell. Installing it myself was a bit fiddly and tricky but I refused to give up, and now I'm delighted to report that I now have a tongue bar that feels like I was born with it. Perseverence definitely pays!
And fun it is! The effect of playing with it inside your mouth is a bit like constantly sucking on a boiled sweet..Mmmmmm. I've so far resisted the temptation to stick it out at people for the sheer shock-horror value. The only time it's visible really is when I eat, or if I deliberately show it to anyone - in normal everyday speech and face-to-face encounter it remains undetectable. Nice!!