Pliers + Belly Button = Pink Bloody Mess
May 11, 2003 - 2:52 a.m.

I was sitting at my puter, bored. Jenny told me she thought the belly button changing process only required one person, all I needed was to arm myself with pliers, and I would take that fucker DOWN. (No, I'm not blaming this on Jenny.) I started by holding the barbell with the pliers and trying to twist the ball with my fingers. No such luck. Then I decided to twist with the pliers and hold with the fingers. This seemed to be getting me at least somewhere. Unfortunately, the pliers also liked to slip and pinch the skin around the barbell. It did this twice before it started bleeding, and thrice before I stopped trying anymore. I don't know why I tried another time after I was already bleeding, but I thought I'd be careful and be sure not to slip. Ha! The third time was the worst time, and my pitiful belly button was gushing blood. After awhile the bleeding calmed down a bit, but the blood was, in fact, still a-flowin'. I applied a shitload of neosporin and cleaned the area with a q-tip. A half an hour later it was still bleeding. I was starting to get worried about the blood loss, so I decided to do some good ol' girl scout tactics. Yup, I lay on my bed with my tummy above my heart for a couple minutes. That didn't really help. It just made the blood rush to my head, and I felt a little dizzy. I also took a tissue and applied pressure for awhile. Then I left to go get some Wendy's with Jenny and Rachel.

I don't know when the bleeding stopped, but it did. Now the skin surrounding the opening with the ball near it is pink. Rachel thinks it will be bruised tomorrow. I'm afraid I hafta start the healing process all over again. Hmph. Hopefully the cuts will heal fast and the irritation will go away. Then I can go to Berkeley and have the people who pierced me change it like it should be! Oh, and maybe I can get my nose pierced in the process :o)

I know a couple questions may have come to your mind while reading this. First of all, you might have though.. But Laura, were those pliers clean?! The honest answer is, I'm not sure. They came from my toolbox that was brand new when I moved into the dorm, and I had never used them before, so I'm assuming so. I'm hoping so. I just stopped taking my antibiotics a couple weeks ago, so this would be a bad bad time for an infection to decide to creep into my body. Ugh. You also might be thinking, geez Laura, you suck at describing this kinda stuff. I could really use a picture of your pinkified hole. Well, boy are you in luck! Here's a picture if you think you can stomach it. Unfortunately, I don't have a before picture because I didn't wanna be flinging pictures of my tummy all over the place, and I surely wasn't planning on the damn thing looking the way it does now.

What did we learn today, kids? Piercings are to be changed by piercers, not ambitious little nineteen year olds with a box of never-been-used hardware. Ta! ~BOB

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