And the saga continues...
At A Glance Author RabidKitten Contact RabidKitten@bme.anon IAM RabidKitten When A week ago Artist Jeff Studio Big O Tattoo Location Lincoln, NE After the ordeal the day before, Tuesday couldn't seem to go by slow enough. My right nostril was bruised, but the internal swelling had gone down quite a bit. It was tender to the touch, but the dried blood had all been taken care of and you could barely tell that I'd had a botched piercing experiment the night before. I was the only one at work that seemed to notice the tiny little dot on my nostril, which I was more than happy with because I didn't want to have to explain to anyone why it looked like I had allergies, but only one side of my nose was affected enough to be red.
I got off work at seven and drove directly down to Big O, not wanting to show up at the last minute before they closed and expecting Jeff to be free. I got progressively more nervous as I drove my way through traffic, downtown. I kept touching my wounded nose, remembering the blood filled nostril and wincing every time I touched the wrong spot. I was also a bit nervous by Jeff's reaction to the whole situation. I showed up and he was just sitting down to his healthy Dairy Queen dinner. He told me he'd be just a couple of minutes, that I should just hang tight while he finished up and he'd take me right back and fix me up 'the right way.'
I watched the head tattoo artist finish up a piece he'd been working on for months, all the while getting more and more nervous. My hands started shaking, and the butterflies in my stomach might have turned carnivorous and were eating my stomach. I wasn't quite sure why I was feeling this way, so I quickly squelched it and forced myself to focus on the fact that it would be easier this time.
Jeff finished his dinner and took me back to the piercing studio. I tossed the leftover jewelry I'd bought from him the night before on the counter (I only had one left, because the other had fallen down my sink drain when I finally took it out of it's dangling perch in my nose). He told me that he'd rather pierce me with another piece of jewelry and showed me a stud very similar to what I'd purchased, only with a smaller screw and a bigger head. I said that it was fun, and whatever he thought would be best. I was ready to listen to anything, any professional said to me at that point.
He asked if I wanted to pierce on the opposite side of where I'd been pierced the night before, so it'd hurt less. I told him no, that I was fine, but I'd rather have it on the right side again. He said that if that's what I wanted, it was cool. He inspected the area and mentioned that where I'd been pierced before was really high, and he'd like to pierce a little bit lower. He marked me three times and told me to look in a mirror to see which mark I preferred. I chose the very middle marking, which seemed to fit the best in the crease of my nose. I sat back down as he cleaned my nose thoroughly, not wanting any infection that could possible be the first to contaminate the second. He clamped my nose, maneuvering the clamp deep into my nostril and told me to start breathing. I didn't want to look so I close my eyes and felt the needle go through. My eyes started to water the way they do when you've just accidentally pulled out a nose hair. He'd pierced me with a 16g needle, so it hurt a bit more than it had the night before when I'd pierced with an 18g. He then picked up the jewelry and told me to start breathing again because the jewelry insertion was just as bad as the piercing. He wasn't lying. He put the nostril screw through, and though he was very efficient, it still was an uncomfortable entry. Then it was in, and I was pierced, and I took a look at myself in the mirror. The head of the screw was a bit more prominent than I'd have liked it, but I was willing to make a sacrifice for a piercing well done. I wasn't sure how well I liked the piercing itself, but I felt I needed to give it a chance since my nose was still bruised which probably altered how it would look normally.
The gentleman that had been there watching, who was an old friend of Jeff's, asked me how it felt. I replied honestly, in the most accurate way I knew how and said "like being punched in the nose by a toddler." Jeff heard me and laughed, "yeah, it's freakin' annoying, huh?" Jeff told me to sleep with a bandage on it that night, and the night after because I'd want to rip it out in my sleep. The thought terrified me, but I decided not to because I would have ripped the bandage off and that would have taken the screw with it! He told me what to do if I accidentally ripped it out (if I couldn't get the screw back in, put in a normal ear stud and then come in to him right away).
Since then I've found myself more annoyed with it than pleased, but if I don't focus on how annoying it is that my nostril is bruised and red and tender, I find myself looking in the mirror thinking about how much 'cool' potential it has when I get a screw with a smaller head on it in. It won't happen for a while, but I think the second time was a charm in this case.