tygertyger

First off, I'd just like to send out mad grats to all the lovely ladies and badass bruthas who've commented in my journal to date - it's nice knowing people actually read this crap.

Even fatter thanks to Lotus for the fun day! Loooooooong, rambling piercing story to follow.

Lotus is my new sugarmama. OK, so I had made plans to meet up with her around 10 this morning, so we could do the whole friends thing before I went to work around 3.

I'm brushing my teeth, like five minutes before heading out the door, and I feel the end of my labret fishtail catch on the edge of my tooth.
"Oh fuck!"
I grab for it, but too late. It slithers out of my lip and dives down the drain.
"Goddammit!"
So the only way to get it back is to take the sink apart. Unfortunately, I lack the tools to do so. Seeing as how I have two roomies, by the time I rustled up some tools, it would surely be washed away, never to be seen again.
So I guess I'm retiring it. I was thinking about it a few days ago, but changed my mind. So now this kinda pisses me off.

So anyway, I went out to see Lotus. We met up and just kinda wandered around the trendier shopping districts for a couple hours. Stopped in at a couple skateshops to check out the longboards - those are pretty stellar. Think I might grab one on payday.

During the excursion, I told Lo about my little jewelry escapade. She asked if I wanted to get a new 'tail, since we were passing a piercing shop with every third step in that area. I said I wasn't sure, but I'd think on it.

So eventually, we end up back near my pad, where there are two piercing shops literally twenty feet apart. She says, "Now's your last chance!" So I was like, "Alright, let's take a look."

Went into one shop and asked if they had any 12g fishtails. The lady said no, but they could give me a 14. I wasn't really into that idea. Then she noticed the (awful) scarring around the hole and started giving me tips on how to reduce it. Her advice? Salt soaks, but never, *ever* Bactine. It gave her huge scarring and killed 21% of her hearing when she used it on her ear. I thanked her, said I'd try the soaks, and left.

Went to the other place. They had 12g 'tails, and I picked a nice spike with a beveled back. It was anodized blue, but they polished it off for me. So I went in the back with the piercer to get it fitted, and asked him about the scarring. He said to use pure vitamin E oil, or better yet, Bactine.

So I told him that, literally less than five minutes ago, another piercer had told me Bactine was the devil. He said she didn't know what she was talking about. Uh, ok.

So he bends the 'tail, and starts trying to slide it in. Bear in mind, my scarring is *really* bad, and the thing had been out for a couple of hours, so he couldn't even find the hole. I pointed it out to him in a mirror, and he tried again. He used a thinner 'tail to try to open it up, he tried poking in a few different spots, he pushed so hard I started bleeding (and *not* from the piercing hole), and then he said, "Y'know what? I'm just gonna put a needle through there and do it that way. And I won't charge you for a piercing."

So I agreed, and he did it, and it hurt a *lot* less than all that other crap. He threaded the 'tail through, asked about the fit, and told me to come back in a couple weeks to have it adjusted. Then we went out front to pay. Lotus had been waiting patiently out there the whole time.

I'm such a loser. I don't have the cash. I have most of it, but not all. Lotus, girl superhero, fronts me the rest.

Then takes me out for lunch! Does she rule, or what?

Anyway, we both got a craving for ice cream, but there's apparently none to be had within a five-mile radius of where we ate. So she suggested we go back to her pad, 'cause there's ice cream there. Of course, on the way, we stopped in at safeway and bought sherbert.

So we're chillaxing chez Lotus, maowing down on wwaaaayyyyy too much lime sherbert, and she's taking pics of me. Maybe I'll post some one day, if they're any good. That was pretty much it before I hadda jet for work, but it was good times.

So then I get to my soul-crushing job. Where I'm not allowed to have any visible jewelry. Fuck. Of course, as it happens, the one guy who could and would give me shit for it is still there. So I have to take my brand-new 'tail out of my freshly re-pierced labret.

As soon as i pull it free, I can smell and taste blood, and I feel wet warm running down my chin. I hit the bathroom, and it's like a fucking waterfall. I manage to clean it up, and the bleeding eventually stops. I go back out front.

After big boss guy leaves, I go back to the bathroom and gingerly re-insert the thing, just to keep the hole from healing shut on me. It feels... different... going through. Once it's all the way in, I pull down my lip to check out why.

"Hey! It didn't come out the same place!" It's like a quarter of an inch lower! Fucking-A! See, one of the reasons I wanted to retire the thing is because it was a real botch-job. The dumb bitch who did it punched through on a steep angle, instead of straight back, preventing me from wearing certain kinds of jewelry in it. But now that's fixed! I got my piercing fixed for free when Lotus helped fund the replacement of something I was pissed about losing! Yay!

Yeah, Lotus is the deckest tassel I know.