I have enough holes, thank you

For the last three days, our local paper has been running a series on the current popularity of tattoos, piercing, branding, and scarification. That last one, if you didn't know, is the process of purposely cutting your skin with scalpels (or a dull stick I guess, if you're into the pain and infection aspect of it) to leave intentional scars.

For some reason, I started talking about this at work with our receptionist, who is maybe 25 or so. I had noticed, of course, that she has a nose piercing and some holes in her ears, but I found out just how obtuse I am.

She actually has two tattoos, one on the top of her foot and one she just had started three weeks ago, in the middle of her upper back between her shoulder blades. She has a bar piercing that goes all the way across the top of her left ear (so two different holes). She has four piercings at the top of her right ear. And she has the nostril piercing.

The biggest shocker, however, is that she has a tongue piercing that I never noticed, even though she's been working with us for three months. I really need new glasses, my god. She tried to make me feel better by explaining that she's become very expert at laughing and talking with her mouth mostly closed and when she demonstrated, I realized that she's absolutely practiced at hiding her piercing. I swear to god, I never noticed a thing and I see her every single work day.

I talked about the newspaper series with her and that the writer had emphasized how long some piercings take to heal. There's this one place called the tragus that's part of your ear and the newspaper said that it never really heals after piercing, ever. That's when she admitted that she's had three of the four holes in her right ear for 9 or 10 months and they still haven't healed.

Greg and I actually talk about tattoos with Allie all the time, telling her how stupid she would be to get one (the comment section is at the bottom of the post, people). I'm not sure if she or Julia will completely rebel in 11 (or 14 1/2) years and decide a tattoo is the perfect way to really piss off her parents.

Just in case, I think I'll remember our receptionist's story about her ear not healing. And if her ear ever falls off from infection, Allie's going on a road trip to visit her!