to save it or say goodbye...

a friend and fellow blogger provided me with a little food for thought today...

if you're too lazy to actually click that link above and read her post (really you should though) i'll spell it out for you... basically, she's had her tongue pierced for a number of years now and endured swallowing hardware and debating whether or not to let her tongue simply roam her mouth free from shackles... or something like that...

i can still remember the day that i took the same plunge and put a bar of steel through that little pink blob in my own cake hole... it was a saturday afternoon and i drove about 30 minutes away from my house to this little tattoo/piercing shop along the lakeshore... i'd called ahead and they said i had to have a full stomach to avoid passing out from the procedure... even though i quickly downed an entire foot long sub, when i got there they denied me because i admitted to having once rocked braces on my teeth... the piercer said something about morals -- "all that money was spent on making your teeth look great and now you want to put something in there that's only going to ruin them!?!"

needless to say, i didn't listen to her... if anything i was even more motivated to get this fucker in there... so after making a couple calls around, i'd found a new suitable and reputable location to get 'er done...

long story short: i drooled, winced a bit and went home feeling like i had marbles in my mouth... it didn't take long for my parents to discover what i'd done -- after all, i could barely speak for about three days without sounding like i was hammered or stopping to bare the pain... for a few days i seriously wondered what the heck i'd done and why... the pain was annoying and it felt like it would never heal...

fast forward to something like 8 years later and i've still got it... i went through phases of switching the barbell to ones with images or colours... i swallowed an entire barbell while eating lunch in the university cafeteria one year... i still even bite down on it every now and then... but to be honest, i forget i even have it unless i take it out... or unless a child points it out (they seem to be the only ones that mention it -- i guess anyone over the age of about 15 isn't really that impressed with what it is anymore) i've never really played with it... i didn't get it to improve any sort of sexual skills... actually, i'm not even sure why i did get it to be absolutely truthful... and i'm now in the same boat as my dear friend... to keep or not to keep...

my father had me pretty much convinced that i should remove it once i started a career in radio broadcasting... but that only lasted a few days... sometimes i take it out for a bit and then promptly put it back in after about three days -- it's like suddenly i think "maybe i'll still want it next week"... it's kind of like that debate you have when you're trying to convince yourself to get rid of clothing -- "well, what if it comes back in style or i fit into it next summer?"

perhaps my next hiatus will be the last... then watch... there will be a sudden boom where tongue piercings are on all the top ten lists...