Two weeks after my 18th birthday I had the funds and most of the courage to get snakebites. The idea hadn't been in my head long and I honestly don't remember how I got the idea stuck in my head to begin with. So that night I called around and finally talked my friend Randi into going with me, she was my tattoo/piercing buddy for that month, having gone with me on my birthday to get my first tattoos where parental consent was not needed. We got there and met Gabe.
At A Glance Author Kayla Contact Kayla@bme.anon When A week ago Artist Steve Studio Electric Chair Clio Location Clio, Michigan He had me fill out the form, asked what gauge and kind of jewelry I wanted, took me back in the room, got set up, marked me, and we were on our way. He fiddled with the markings for a few minutes until we agreed they were in a good spot. So, right side first, virtually painless, then left side, again very little pain. After he had both done he said they were visible uneven and offered to take one out and try to even them up. I took a look in the mirror and decided that would be for the best. He removed the left stud, cleaned the lip, marked it again, and pierced it again. It was still noticeably lower than the right side. He said he wouldn't try it again that night, but if I wanted to come in the following week he would straighten them out.
The next morning my mom called me to see if I wanted to go to lunch with her. I told her on the phone what I had done to prepare her. She's not too keen on any piercings. She took it surprisingly well, even though I could tell she wasn't happy with me. My dad didn't take it as well when he saw them that afternoon. And he was the first person to comment that they looked crooked. My sister loved them and started thinking about getting them too.
The next week came and I got a different friend to go out there with me. Gabe did his thing. Took the ring out, cleaned my lip, gave me the ring that had been in my lip, marked me, asked for my friends opinion, and pierced. On the way out my friend kept saying it looked higher than the right side now. I prayed that it was from the swelling.
It wasn't.
By the end of the week the swelling was completely gone and the left was still noticeably higher than the right. By then I had retired my labret ring so it was more pronounced. After a few weeks of deliberation I took out the left side. I let it heal for a month and went back to try again. After the swelling was down it still was off, so I took it out and put my labret back in. I stayed like that through the end of summer when I retired the labret again.
In August I got my septum pierced and after a few days it seemed like it was pierced back farther on one side than the other. So I headed out to the shop and Gabe showed me that I was wearing the jewelry wrong (at the time I believed him, but I just changed it from a circular barbell to a retainer and it looks crooked again). Since I was there I decided to give him another chance and asked him to pierce the left side. He pierced it in the same spot he had done the last one in, even though I told him that spot had been too high. So once more I had crooked snakebites. But this time I decided to stick with it for a while. By November I couldn't even look in the mirror without getting seriously annoyed with how crooked they were. So I took them both out and I had a metal free lip for the first time in 6 years (I did my labret myself when I was 12). In December I brought back the labret, retired it, brought it back, then retired it again.
Coming into 2008 I felt naked without any metal in my lip. I kept trying to play with my lip ring and since I no longer had one I was pretty pissy. Along with that I had been spending a lot of time on BME and had spent a good chunk of that time looking at snakebites. So I decided for my 19th birthday I would get my snakebites redone. I didn't make it that far. 3 weeks before my birthday I was back at Electric Chair with a new piercer, Steve, getting my snakebites. He took a lot of care in the marking them. They're a little below where I had them before and so far so good. The left does look a little off, but I'll wait until I get the jewelry changed to something smaller to decide if they're really so crooked that I can't stand it. The left side swelled horribly and I had really nasty, dark bruising on the inside of my lip. The rings are 14g, where my lip rings have always been 16g, so they look ridiculous to me, but it's only been a week and the left side is still a bit swollen so I can't switch them out. Plus I discarded all of my labret jewelry after I retired my labret for the 4th time in December so I have nothing to put in them.
Overall, I'm glad I did it again, but I cannot wait to change the rings. And I'm starting to think that maybe this crooked thing is just in my head.