Well, It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time...

Remember a while ago, when I alluded to working my nerve up to do something? And I blamed the tequila and my friends?

Well, that something was letting a nice lady named Allison, who had many tattoos, large holes in her ears and three studs in her nose grab my tongue in a clamp and add a metal barbell to my oral landscape. It actually didn't really hurt. It ached, which was weird. The strangest part? They dry your tongue out before doing it, and that feels very very odd. Your tongue is not meant to be dry. Really. When I asked her if it was going to make me talk like an idiot, she responded that if people wanted to sound like idiots, they would with or without the tongue ring. Then she stuck out her tongue, and holy smokes! she had THREE studs in her tongue, in a triangle that matched the one in her nose!

Why did I do this? I'm not sure how it all got started, but I went out at Thanksgiving with friends from college. It was the first time since college that we'd all been together again and it certainly didn't take us long to regress. One thing led to another and somehow we were all (all 10 of us) trooping to the conveniently located (next to the bar) tattoo/piercing place to each have something done. The first one to remove it pays for the group trip to Vegas. I will not be losing this bet. Now it's down to an endurance test. I was hopeful at first 'cause one friend is a banker and she got her eyebrow done. I was sure that she'd walk into work on Monday and they'd be all "Get that metal OUT of your face!" Turns out, they thought it was so cool that two of her coworkers went out at lunch and got theirs done too. Well, dammit. There went that idea.

So at Christmas, I went back to the store and got new bars with acrylic balls, which are much less likely to hurt your teeth. Also, the light doesn't glint off them when you talk and you're much less likely to have people notice it.

It's actually been fun to play with - if you put ice on the top of your tongue, you can feel it underneath 'cause of the metal conducting the cold. Neat! Interesting and unexpected - talking on my cell phone outside the other night and it was really cold out, and it felt remarkably like I'd stuck my tongue to a flagpole, but INSIDE my mouth.

Pretty cool: I've lost 10+ pounds since Thanksgiving. Crunchy, which is a personal weakness of mine, is a bit of a problem now.

But yesterday, on my way home from work, I realized that the bottom ball had worked its way loose and was floating around my mouth. For whatever reason, I had a hard time getting it screwed back on - no, not while driving, after I got home. And today, damn thing did it again! On Allison's advice, I have an extra barbell in my purse, just in case it comes loose and I swallow it or something. Apparently, the acrylic balls have a very finite lifespan. I'm going to go reattach the stupid thing and if it escapes again, I'll move to a different colored one. *sigh*

Parting thought: Have you ever tried to take a picture of your own tongue? With a newspaper? Proof of life pictures are a major pain.