Getting my ears pierced—a family story

Last week, my granddaughter got her ears pierced. My daughter-in-law posted a video of the procedure—I guess any more places like Claire’s do both ears at the same time, only they were a little short-staffed so A had hers done one at a time. The look on her face just killed me. You could tell she was thrilled but at the same time, having that done hurts.

My 13th birthday cake

I was 13 when I got my ears pierced and I remember it well. I don’t recall asking to have it done, but that’s probably because I’ve always been so deathly scared of needles. Remember, I had lots of painful penicillin shots when I was a little girl so anything associated with needles meant pain to me, so it’s no wonder I dreaded any form of needle intrusion. My mom took me to the mall and I do remember she was acting a little weird, but I just figured she was spazzing about something unrelated to me. Not so—she knew she was taking me to get my ears pierced and I’m sure she feared I’d have a meltdown or something if she told me where we were going.

The nice thing about not knowing I was going to have my ears pierced is I didn’t really have a lot of time to get all worked up. I mean, I was definitely nervous but not outrageously so. I sat there quietly as the lady marked my earlobes and boom! My ears were pierced.

But there was a problem . . . you see, my ears are shaped differently, especially my earlobes. The lady had centered each hole in the middle of the lobe, but the earrings weren’t level on the sides of my head. After we got home, Mom realized that one earring was distinctly lower than the other. So she proposed that we take out one of the earrings, let the hole regrow for a week and then have Dad re-pierce that ear in the correct spot.

I did not want to do that, I can tell you. But I also didn’t want to have earrings that were never level and would always look wrong for the rest of my life. So I agreed, we took out the earring, and then I waited and got super nervous as the end of the week approached.

I believe I did well when Dad re-pierced my ear, but that may be a nice revision of history on my part. Regardless, today my earrings hang where they should even with my mismatched earlobes.