Making Some Piercing Assumptions
Health & Body, Medical Office, Parents/Guardians, USA | Healthy | October 23, 2017
(My mother and I are out for lunch on my twentieth birthday. I’ve been wanting to get my navel pierced for a while, so when we pass a tattoo and piercing parlor I go in to check it out. It’s very clean and on the up and up, so Mom offers to pay for the piercing right then and there, and we get it done. Around this same time, I have to go in for an MRI on my right knee to see why it’s hurting so much lately. Mom and I are currently attending the same college, so I’m living at home to save money. Mom drives me to the appointment. She brings her homework and spreads it out all over the table and the surrounding seats, as there are a lot of seats and almost no people.)
Doctor: “[My Last Name]?”
Me: *jumping up* “Right here!”
(Mom begins to pack up her schoolwork.)
Me: *quickly* “Oh, no, that’s fine; you don’t need to come back! Just keep working on your project.”
Mom: *laughs* “I keep forgetting you’re an adult now.”
(I go back with the doctor and, all of a sudden, remember that I’m now pierced.)
Me: “Oh. Oh, jeeze.”
Doctor: “What?”
Me: “Well… see, I know the rules about MRIs and metal, but I just realized that I have a fresh piercing that I can’t take out yet… uh… this is going to be a problem, isn’t it?”
Doctor: “Not if we only scan your knee. May I see it?”
(I lift up my shirt to show him my piercing.)
Doctor: “Are you cleaning it?”
Me: “Twice a day with soap, water, and hydrogen peroxide.”
Doctor: *starts going through his desk* “We get a lot of kids with piercings that they don’t take care of and it can get real ugly, you know.”
Me: “Oh, I know. I got my ears done when I was six. And eight.”
(The doctor gives me a handful of individually wrapped sanitary wipes.)
Doctor: “Here, you can use these to keep the area clean.” *pause* “So, does your mother know about the piercing?”
Me: “What? Oh! Yes; yes, she does. She’s the one who got it for me. I only told her to stay because I didn’t want her to have to pack everything up, that’s all.”
(The doctor looks suspicious.)
Me: “Honest!”
(I change into the hospital gown and the procedure goes well. I get a little more lecturing about how to clean a piercing, and to always make sure to go to a reputable place that uses sterile equipment, before the doctor leads me out. When we’re both in the waiting room, I turn to Mom.)
Me: “Hey, Mom, tell the doctor who bought my navel piercing.”
Mom: “Um… I did?”
(The doctor laughed. Then believed me, and sent me home to await the results.)
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