Piercings in the Night

What happens to a person’s ears after they remove those trendy African hoops in them? Do the circly loops somehow get superglued back into place to make them appear like a normal ear, or are they left like that in even newer groovier style? Will it be cool to be fifty years old and have basketball hoops dangling from one’s head? Will basketball netting attachments be in vogue? Can you pierce netting? I often wonder about the other piercings – the bolts, sticks, loops, branches and such. Someone from the future might be thinking that we left a bunch of pointy garbage sticking about and people just fell over it and left it on their body - like running into a cactus and leaving all the spines there for art. (very nasally aristocratic voice) “Why, its art dear. The highest human form of expression.”

I’m lying in bed pondering these indisputably imperative questions of our age when the idea hits me that it may all be a slippery slope and my own involvement of having my daughter’s ears pierced this summer might start her on the same slippery slope - so much so that she could end up looking like she was on the receiving end of Friday afternoon’s ho-down with a half-dozen drunken carpenters armed with pneumatic nail guns pointed at her. “Gee Bob, all I have is 6 penny. Do you think that’ll penetrate the nasal cartilage?”
“Whata I know Bill? I’m drunk, now crank up that air compressor, we’s gonna have us some FUN. YIPEE!”

I’m quite certain she’d have holes in places they haven’t invented yet. Speaking of places they haven’t invented yet, a recent check on “the source to all our questions” – AKA ‘The Internet’, shows that there are tons-o places to do piercings. Latest polls show 13 different ear piercings, seven for the nose, 22 for the mouth area, 15 for the places down under, and 16 for other body areas. Some of those areas I would have never thought possible to pierce… like the wrist or a clavicle, or the one I personally find dreadful – the Achilles heel. Oh, and the names they give to these – there are the straight forward names such as: knuckle, finger, cleavage, sideburn. Then, there are more esoteric names like: Tragus, Scrumper and the Apadravya. None of these looks pleasant. If you have an Apadravya, Yikes! I hope it heals.

So, I’m in bed sweating the possibility, making a mental note to discuss this obsession with body piercings, but maybe the talk should wait until she’s done with her pee-wee swim lesson. I’m there sweating bullets and creating images in my mind of my darling daughter having “Industrials” in her ears and a “Dangling Rhino” in her nose and sticks in her… YOUCH! I cannot think it! If I think it, it might come true, and that just cannot happen!
I start to whimper and curl up in the fetal position, and I hear Amber crying too. She’s slowly making her way up stairs with her eyes closed. We’re both having a nightmare. I wonder if she’s envisioning herself at that age of 50 with superglued basketball hooped ears pasted to the side of her head by a second rate plastic surgeon. No wonder she’s crying!

I quick speculate if we can both go climb in someone else’s bed and cry together. I try to have her explain the scene to me. She gives me mumbled words… Hum. That’s interesting - she’s learned a new language because I’m certain I don’t know this one. Then a word comes out that I do recognize and the whole problem is about her hair braids. It appears a braid has fallen out is causing such a ruckus to no end, and now the balance of the rotation of the earth is out of wack. The only way to put it back into wack is to reinstall the braid. Dad goes to work with the efficiency which only the male gender can produce: said braid reinstalled (mostly), child reinstalled back into bed, covers are over the child (check), light extinguished, something mumbled about “stay there”… hey, this parenting this is as easy as reading a technical manual for dog training. Well, except for that dang transverse lobe piercing might bother her. I make another mental note to talk to my seven-year old about turning into a pin cushion.