I had just finished working a five hour shift of extremely physical labour at my very first day of my very first job and pondered for a while about what I would spend my very first paycheque on. CDs? DVDs? No. I had tonnes of them. Clothes? No I had just gone shopping the day before. I was at a loss to think of what I didn't have that I wanted, then it came to me, I wanted my nostril pierced. It was something I wanted since I was seven, that was eight years ago. I was dead tired so I took a nap an called my best friend Jeff.
At A Glance Author Steph R. Contact Steph R.@bme.anon When It just happened Artist Erin Studio Adrenaline Location Vancouver, BC I asked Jeff if she knew a place that wasn't shifty, like where I had my eyebrow pierced, and she suggested Adrenaline in Vancouver. It was a forty minute drive from where I live in Surrey, but I was determined to get that hole in my nose, more so the jewelery that would plug it.
A year ago I got my eyebrow pierced at Paul's where the "piercer" told me to use iodine on my fresh wound and put in a straight barbell. Bad Idea. It rejected almost completely out, until it got pulled out when I was changing shirts.
Two weeks after deciding to get my nose pierced, I got my paycheque and asked my mom to pick up Jeff, drive us to Adrenaline and sign the release forms. Reluctantly she agreed; I was so happy!
When we arrived in Vancouver and found a parking spot on Granville Street (where Adrenaline is located). We piled out of the car and looked across the street, where there was a dodgy looking piercing place surrounded by two porno shops.
"Jesus Christ!" I thought, "Another shifty place."
I was so relieved when the address didn't match. We walked for a few blocks and then came to Adrenaline. We walked in and I was so surprised. It looked like a clothing store form the front, with a wall covered in pictures of tattoos, and another covered with jewelery cases full of barbells, CBRs and other jewelery.
A woman approached me and asked what I came in for and I told her about wanting my nostril pierced. I picked out a little nose screw with a star on it and filled out the appropriate forms. She said her name was Erin and photocopied both my and my mother's ID, then asked me to follow her into a room and to bring only one person in. I pointed at Jeff and we went into the room.
The room was brightly lit and had white walls, counters and floors with a silver sink, a black bed like how you see at a doctor's office and one mirrored wall.
I sat on the doctor's bed and took a deep breath in. I was so excited to finally get my nose pierced. Erin took some Q-tips out of a packet of three and swabbed the inside of my nose with some sort of anti-bacterial and the outside of my nose with a cotton pad. She complimented the defined crease in my nose and said that a stud would look really pretty on it, then marked where most people's placement of their nose piercing was. I liked it so she took the needle out of the packet and then told me to lay on my side, take a deep breath and close my eyes. I felt a weird pressure and then the needle was back out. To insert the screw she told me to take another deep breath and that I would feel a slight pressure. It hurt so bad and was at least a little more than a slight pressure. I was so surprised because when I got my eyebrow pierced, I didn't even feel it. When it all was finished my nose was bleeding a lot, so some gauze was put on the inside of my nose do stop the bleeding. I waited in the room for my nose to stop bleeding while Erin gave me my aftercare instructions: to wash it with anti-bacterial soap and soak it in a glass of sea salt water for at least three minutes a day. My nose stopped bleeding and she told me to come back into the shop if it started bleeding again in twenty minutes.
When I was getting a ride home from my mom, I was admiring my pretty nose stud. My mom said that she liked it and she would have her nose pierced, too if she had a higher pain threshold. I was happy about how much cleaner this studio was than the other place, and how Erin didn't treat me like I was stupid when I asked a question. I loved that hole in my nose.
Today I woke up and went into the bathroom to clean my nose and to my horror, my cute little nose screw was gone! I freaked out and looked everywhere for my jewelery, when I found it, I cleaned it with anti-bacterial soap and tried to insert the screw into my nose, but couldn't get it in. I panicked and found an earring to put in until I could go back to the piercing studio and have the nose screw put back in, but the hole had already mostly closed up. I cried and cried. I had worked so hard to get that nose piercing and all I had to show for it was a sore nose and a nose screw not in my nose. My dad assured me that we could go back after it had healed and he would pay the piercing fee and bring my nose screw in for the new piercing.
I can't wait to get my nose re-pierced. I feel like a seven-year-old again.