At A Glance Author meg Contact trailercamptramp@aol.com IAM serpenttitties When Five years ago Artist Kevin Jump Studio Skin Craft Location Cincinnati Ohio In 1997, when I was 17, I decided that I wanted to go to college. I had dropped out of high school the year before and had gotten my GED. I wanted to go for graphic design, and so with out much research I jumped on the college bandwagon and headed to Cincinnati, Ohio to go to Antonelli College of Art. I didn't learn much, but I made some good friends, and one of them, Tatum, had a few piercings. I was in love! I turned 18 later that year, and I felt so bland in comparison!
I thought her piercings were the best thing since sliced bread, but I was a big chicken about getting any of my own. About 3 years prior, I had pierced my nostril with a sewing machine needle, and I remembered the agony of trying to force it through, not to mention the hassle that came with the resulting infection! Needless to say I simply admired her piercings with envy, knowing that someday maybe I would be brave enough to get a few. I doubted it though.
One night Tatum and I went out to a club, and we were having a great time. All of a sudden she stopped dancing and yelled "shit!" I was wondering what was going on, and when I looked at her, I knew...a ball had fallen off of her barbell in her eyebrow piercing, and the jewelry was gone. She grabbed my hand and pulled me outside, telling me she had to get to the tattoo studio to get a new piece or the piercing was going to close, so off we went.
I had never been in a tattoo studio, so I was not expecting good things. What I was greeted by were a soothing buzzing noise as artists worked on clients, a clean, delicious smell that I later learned was green soap, and the cutest boy I had ever set eyes on working the counter. My heart skipped a beat, and I felt myself blush when he smiled at me. Tatum seemed to be on good terms with Mr. Cutie-pie, and while she told him what had happened, I checked out the jewelry in the cases, and that's when I saw it....A beautiful labret stud, steel with a tiny blue stone set in the end, glinting and shining like a bad soap opera actress' tears. I had to have it. In my lip. Right then, this minute! Then I stopped daydreaming and woke up to reality. I had to be a miser with my money in order to pay my rent, so I never had any extra cash on me.
Then I remembered the Student Visa Card tucked neatly in my wallet behind my ID and library card. I blurted out "I want to get my labret pierced". Tatum stopped talking and looked at me like I had grown warts on my eyelids.
"Huh?" she asked.
With in minutes, Mr. Cutie-pie, aka Kevin had me filling out paper work and went to autoclave my fancy gemmy goodness. I was so nervous my knees were shaking and I couldn't breathe. He came back and told me that the head piercer could do my piercing, and it would be $70.00, or he could so it as an apprentice and it would be $30.00. I decided it was a good excuse to get close to him, and told him he could do it. I was to be his third labret. He sent me out to go eat and away I went, eager to gush to Tatum how cute I thought he was.
After eating, we came back and he was waiting. He led us back to the piercing room, and I stopped dead in my tracks....Whoa. This place looked like a doctor's office, complete with exam table and standard white cabinets. All the items for my piercing were laid out on a dental bib on a mayo stand. I hesitated, and then realized that what I was seeing was a GOOD thing, and not something to be afraid of. He motioned for me to sit down on the table, and I laughed to myself as the paper covering it crinkled.
A bit nervously, he explained the procedure and aftercare, and patiently answered my 84,000 questions like a perfect gentleman. He had a great sense of humor, and the laughter really did make it much easier on me. We gave me some mouth rinse and I walked to the sink. I rinsed or a minute, spit and sat back down. He slimed me with some foul smelling goo that I now know was Techni-Care, and let that sit a moment while he finished opening his packages and arranging his tray.
Once I was cleaned up, he made a mark on me that I immediately hated, and told him so. I think we played move the dot about 10 times before I was happy, finally settling on a very low placement smack dab in the center. I sat back down again, and he told me to lie down with my head by the tray. I did as I was told, and he sat down on a stool next to me, snapping on fresh gloves. He then dried my lip with a gauze pad and placed the forceps on me.
Boy, they pinched, and I was pretty uncomfortable, but I just stayed quiet. I did not want to look like a big wimpy dork in front of Kevin.
He got the needle ready, and told me to start focusing on my breathing. The next thing I knew my left hand flew out, found the wall, and I pounded while saying, as well as I could for having a needle in my lip and forceps and all, "Kevin, YOU ARE HURTING ME!!! Kevin, you said this would not hurt. Kevin, you are hurting me. Ouch. Kev- Kevin, Kevin, this really hurts."
I had absolutely blown it big time.
What a freekin dork.
He looked at me and laughed a little despite himself and told me to hush and be still as he did the jewelry transfer. Then came the screwing on of the disk back, and it was awful, because he still had my lip in the forceps and jerked it a little as he reached for the disk, pulling another chorus of "Kevin, you are hurting me" from my big mouth.
I was done. I had the piercing of my dreams and I had made a total fool of myself. I paid and high tailed it out of there as fast as I could, Tatum chasing me and cracking up.
We went to Walgreens and I bought some Biotene and distilled water, and then headed home to begin the process of healing both my lip and my ego.
Healing was simple, I don't remember any trouble at all. I rinsed with the Biotene and a sea salt solution, and washed the outside with antibacterial soap and more of the sea salty goodness. I tightened the jewelry religiously, since a loose ball was the reason I ended up with a new piercing in the first place, and I was careful about biting it and playing with it. After 2 weeks, I downsized it from a 14 gauge 3/8 post to a 14 gauge 1/4 post, and I was so relieved by the comfort of it. The disk pulled into the back of my lip ever so slightly, buffering my teeth from constant rubbing, and I could eat with out getting it caught on my lower teeth!
It's now 2004, and I still have the same piercing. It's a 2 gauge now, a long way from that old 14 gauge. And to this day when I see Kevin, he laughs and reminds me of that piercing, and my whining and hollering and pounding, and how I almost scared him away from piercing for good.