Body Piercing

I am consistently surprised when I encounter human beings who desire to mutilate their body with various body art or piercings. I am particularly transfixed by those members of society who have the strength of soul and apparent suspension of all intelligent thought who are inclined to poke holes through things like a tongue, a nose, lips, a navel - because frankly I can't figure out not only what motivates someone to mutilate themselves in this manner, let alone how they can muster the courage to go through with something this bizarre.

Body art has existed from the time that Grog was able to figure out that "clay make pretty, pretty on face". Clearly the interest in enhancing, attracting, coloring and camouflaging our visible parts goes back a long, long way. Today, however, I'm sure that piercing is less a demonstration of "body art" but more of a type of self-mutilation. To subject your muscles, flesh and delicate tissue to permanent holes and horrific infections, if done incorrectly, is a notion I will never, ever, understand. To me body piercing is tantamount to self hatred as it seems to say I have no value or respect for the harm this may do in the name of fashion or trend setting. It's a complete disregard for your body and truth be told it completely grosses me out.

I know numerous people and have multiple friends who partake in this ritual of poking holes in themselves and hanging stuff from those holes like a display rack in a department store. And to these friends I say, YUCK! Some of these people are single and everytime I see them I can't suppress the voice in my head which screams: who in the hell could possibly be attracted to that crap hanging from your nose. And of course, I think "nose" and then my mind wanders to an image of that person during allergy season sneezing away and I'm struck by the image of them having to (egads!) take the damn door knocker out of the offending body part when they are forced to live like the rest of the world and blow their nose the old fashion way. And of course, I then imagine that if they were willing to go through cartilage to accomplish that look, God knows what the rest of them looks like underneath all that fabric and toughness. Which brings me back to the original thought: "who the hell goes for someone like that?" Which is promptly answered when the significant other shows up displaying car fresheners from their ears and an entire Craftsman tool kit from no less than twenty different holes specifically targeted to be thee most painful looking places evah.

I once talked at length to a gal whose tongue was pierced no less than twice. And after falling into the rhythm of her speech, or, after taking 10 minutes trying to figure out the exact new cadence of her tongue piercing language, I was able to glean from her the rationale for having two metal balls nailed into and through the most important muscle of communication. In short: there was no plausible explanation she could profess that made any sense whatsoever, with the exception of one: (and if you are under the age of 18 you need to stop reading here): "her boyfriend believed it was instrumental in enhancing the amorous side of their relationship". To which I naively responded: "but the piercing is in your MOUTH!" To which she stared blankly in her best valley girl way as if to say "der". To which I nearly said "I don't get it" that is, until I read her "der" expression for what it was really attempting to say and promptly screamed "OH MY GOD! YOU ARE THE BIGGEST IDIOT I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED IN MY LIFE! YOU DID THAT TO YOURSELF FOR A GUY? NO! NO! EVEN WORSE, FOR THAT?"

Suffice to say, speech impediment aside, I understood her next communication (which pretty much consisted of a single hand gesture) so clearly and precisely that I no longer worried about her inability to pronounce normal phrases like: "Hello, my name is..". Her American sign language skills were working just fine.