| Shannon's Excellent Navel Piercing Adventure: Heather's Bachelorette Thing |
| September 7, 2001 Sometimes we do things that defy conventional wisdom and explanation. I offer the following account of my recent belly button piercing episode. So my best friend, Heather, is getting married. No one wants those scary-looking strippers (oily men in tiny men-panty-thingies is just not an appealing thing). That left Stacia, the third in our trio of best friends, and I in quite a quandry. What to do to celebrate the upcoming nuptuals of our best pal? It had to be memorable. Twenty-four years is a long time to be pals. Skydiving was out. The seven other bridesmaids were just not having any part in it. What's the big deal? you strap on some nylon and leap at 13,000 feet. I survived. It was great! Besides, you get to enjoy a nice little slide presentation. (That would be your life passing in front of your eyes.) Bungy jumping? Out. rodeo riding? Out. The next logical choice, of course---body piercing! Not too scary. Not permanent. Very little scarring. And so, that is how I ended up with a nifty little silver ring in my navel. But getting this way was half the fun... Due to circumstances beyond our control, this mission was left up to Stacia and I to complete. How difficult could it be? Go to a place that had "Piercing" sign on the door and let the celebration begin. First, we stopped in a litlte shop which had their little "Piercing" sign out. They didn't do navel piercing. Only ears. Not a good enough tribute for our best pal! The next place, name unknown as it was written in chinese, featured a little old woman perched on the stoop outside eating something that looked an awful lot like black squid. But she wasn't doing the piercing so who cares, right? So we went in. Oh, and it was hot in there. And there he was, our "body piercer", a sweaty little chinese guy eating wilted salad with his sweaty little fingers. No utensils. Not even chopsticks. Fingers. Hmm...my mind flashed to this gem of a man hunched over my belly button with a very slippery, sweaty needle. Yikes! If he slipped, no teling what kind of damage he could have done. We left there in a hurry. Strolling down South Street, we happened upon a shop that most likely did body piercing. However, the store front window display left me a bit disconcerted. The mannequins sported black leather outfits, studded collars, and jewelry that clearly indicated anarchy or Nazism as the cults of choice. Now, mind you, the folks standing outside had plenty of swell body piercings, probably performed by the skin-headed store manager, but I had to wonder what kind of jewelry would end up piercing my body. I could not imagine that a swastika would have gone over too well with the church crowd. Next stop, please. Oh yes, that lead us to the most interesting of places...BattleAxe Piercing. Don't ya just love that name? So bold. So "Yeah, so I got a belly ring. Wanna make somethin' of it?". Who cares about a name? I thought. Let's just do this! Stacia and I climbed the steep metal armor-clad stairs, about 52 in all, to enter this lovely little joint. By the time we got to the top, Stacia was gasping for breath and I was hoping she would not require an ambulance until after I paid my tribute to Heather. I heard hospitals don't do body piercings for fun. There was a couple in front of us perusing the slimey case trying to find just the right body adronment so that gave Stacia and I time to check the place out. One glance at my cohort and I could tell she was not about to touch anything in that little shop of horrors. And nothing was touching her. I would have to agree. The photos of real clients on the walls...lovely. A number of them could certainly have made it on the cover of "Porn Piercing" magazine. The pain I went through just looking at what others had willingly endured...ewe. Okay, moving on.... Ah, yes, the BattleAxe piercer. What a doll he was. Big. Beefy. Sweaty. Stunning. Didn't look all that bright, either. So there he was, Big Beefy Bubba lumbering around behind the greasy glass case filled with row upon row of jewelry items I can only describe as "Ouch!". when he finally acknowledged us, he told me it was "fifty bucks plus tax" (as if body piercing was somehow a clothing/food/necessity in Pennsylvania and therefore not subject to taxation). That was right about the time I noticed the piercing chair behind Big Beefy Bubba. It was like a dentist's chair, except it didn't look as if it had seen any type of cleaning agent in quite a while. Just sitting there, out in the open, for all the world to hoist themselves up the stairs to come and witness me get my BattleAxe piercing done. I guess I could have asked for the free-standing screen to block my belly from all who dared, but I truly feared it would topple over onto us just as he was inserting the needle. Another navel disaster just waiting to happen. I doubt if that photo would have made their photo clientel wall of fame. But then I had another mental picture. This was of Big Beefy Bubba looming over my tender little belly button with his sausage fingers and a really big needle, wiping the sweat from his brow because BattleAxe Piercing had no need for air-conditioning. BattleAxes are tough that way, I guess. And since he seemed to move at super slo-mo speed, I failed to have enough confidence that the whole deal would be quick and painless as promised. Stacia and I beat feet down the gazillion steps and continued our search. Finally, we happened upon Inferno Body Piercing. Okay, yes, the name indicated a certain Satan kind of premonition into the future for what we were about to do, but the place was air-conditioned. Clean. The sales people were friendly, constantly wiping down the glass case which displayed all kinds of interesting body art things. I had to produce ID and fill out some paperwork acknowledging that my age was over 18, that I was sane (?), and then there was the whole hold harmless paragraph that said I couldn't sue if they accidentally pierced an organ or something equally horrific. |
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