My very first body piercing :c)

Before I even start I must say, now that I have the knowledge that I do, I would not encourage this behavior at all.

So one day when I was 13 I was staying at my older brothers house as I did almost every weekend to help babysit my then 3 year old niece.  I was bored so I grabbed one of my sister-in-law's random gold earrings and just clamped it on my navel.  This was not any sort of body jewelry either just a standard gold hoop.  I thought it looked so sweet I just could no longer resist the urge for a piercing.  There was a sewing needle around and I decided to follow the terrible advice of people online and burned it and soaked it in alcohol thinking this meant it was "sterile".  I was sitting watching T.V. in my room/my nieces play room and slowly went at it.  Nowadays I don't have the cojones to pierce myself lol but I was a 13 year old Miami chonga dead set on piercing myself.  

Before I could finish my sister-in-law caught me though.  She was in school for nursing and freaked! Immediately she took me to the bathroom and started cleaning the area with Hydrogen Peroxide.  I am guessing she fibbed to scare me but I will always remember her telling me that the bubbling was a sign of E. Coli (found in poo!) being present and how I could get a terrible infection.  

• I now know the reason why it foams is because blood and cells contain an enzyme called catalase which turns Hydrogen Peroxide into water and oxygen bubbles.  Also its now known that it really does not do a very good job as an antiseptic.  A little medical/scientific knowledge for you guys :cP

Despite this scare tactic though, once everyone was asleep, I grabbed a thumbtack (yes a thumbtack!) and finished it off.  I put in that gold hoop earring and thought I was the baddest chic around!

*picture from when I was about 16 and yes at one point I had 2 more*

I don't quite recall how this ended up though, but I still have the same hole til this day.  I remember showing it off in my middle school, all pink and nasty as it was.  People would look in aw and either thought I was a weirdo or totally bad ass.  In middle school both were a good thing really.  I am sure I eventually hijacked navel jewelry from my sister-in-law but I don't recall ever getting in a huge amount of trouble for it.  Whenever I got caught my Mom also never believed I did them myself.  I think they might have thought this one was okay since it was kind of "cute".  Unlike the next piercing I did on myself.  That is definitely a story to tell, and I still have this one too!

Before I sign off I want to remind everyone that I was lucky! I am sure it was plenty infected at many points and until this day my navel piercing has a pretty big darkened orbit of skin around it from all the torment it went through.  If you want a piercing that will last and be beautiful it needs to be done professionally! I have many nasty scars which there was just no need for and patience would have prevented. 

Also talking about all my early influences brought me back to some of the awesome episodes of my favorite shows Daria and Beavis and Butthead which surrounded around piercings.  I posted them here for you guys to enjoy <3 Until next time!