Flashback: Holes in my head

Prompt #5: “Have you ever had your ears pierced? Where did you go to do it? Who went with you? What were the first earrings you bought yourself after you had this done?”

If I remember right, Anna and I didn’t have an official “age” for when we could get our ears pierced; but our cousin, who is seven months old than me and seven months younger than Anna, did.

Ariann could get her ears pierced when she turned eight.

So Anna and I did too (I think).

I don’t remember, actually, whether we each got our ears pierced on our respective eighth birthdays or whether we both got our ears pierced on the same day sometime in the general vicinity of one or the other of our eighth’s.

I do remember though, the events that took place shortly after getting my ears pierced around age eight.

I was standing up in the dining room, probably clowning around, talking with Anna, who was draped over a dining room chair coo-cocky. Her leg was over the chair, her bare foot making circles in the air.

Whether she initiated it or I did, I do not know, but somehow her toes got caught in my brand new earrings–and pulled.

A little rip in the ear and having earrings wasn’t quite so fun.

I dealt with the crust and goo and pus and infection for a while, but finally gave up on the matter, taking out the studs and not replacing them.

It was a rather short-lived adventure.

Every so often, for a special event, I’d stick a needle through my ear–open it up just enough to wear earrings for a night. But those times were few and far between, and always ended with another bought of painful infection.

I let them close up for good and rarely thought twice of it.

Until I decided I wanted to try to do 2012 things in 2012.

I figured, why not?

So Ruth and I read a few WikiHow articles.

I turned down my sister’s offer of Lidocaine, smeared Anbesol on my ear, numbed it with an ice cube for good measure.

Ruth sterilized the needle with a lighter, dropped it in a rubbing alcohol bath, put on gloves over her washed hands.

I prepared the potato and held it to the back of my ear. Ruth found the trace remnant of my previous holes and pushed the needle through the scar tissue into the potato.

I grabbed the needle from behind while Ruth extricated a stud from the alcohol bath. I removed the needle as slowly as I could, pulling it all the way through the back rather than returning the now-contaminated needle through the hole again. Ruth followed my extrication as carefully as she could with the stud. We anchored the stud in place with the earring back, and turned to the second ear.

It was relatively quick, painless, inexpensive, and rather a priceless experience.

Best of all?

A week and a half out, my ears aren’t flaming red, aren’t seeping pus, and aren’t painful to touch.

Instead, when I look in the mirror, I smile at my gorgeous new earrings, and thank Ruth for joining me in my 2012 adventure!