Going through your blog made me think of the first piercing I got so I decided to send it in.

I was about ten when I got my ears pierced with a gun at one of those kiosks in the mall; they were called the Piercing Pagoda. Obviously neither my mom or I had any idea guns were so bad. The earrings I picked for them to put in were rubies, my birthstone. Although the actual piercing hurt way more than (I now know) it should’ve, it looked and felt okay for several days. We were cleaning it, turning it, doing everything the people there had told us to do.

It was probably less than a week later that my mom went to clean and turn them when suddenly what she had thought was the ruby completely flicked off. Turns out it wasn’t a ruby, it was dried blood, and the earring itself was inside my ear. It literally looked like my lobe had swallowed it whole. There wasn’t even a hole in the front.
I ended up having to go to a ears nose and throat specialist and he numbed my ear lobe completely before cutting the earring out.

I learned my lesson about guns. I didn’t get another piercing until I was 14 and it wasn’t my lobes, it was a monroe. I didn’t get up the nerve to get my lobes pierced again until I was 19. None of my piercings after the earring-swallowing incident were done with guns and I try to educate anyone I know getting any piercing to get it done professionally, with a needle. Usually my gory story is enough to convince them.