Pins and Needles

To set the record straight, I really don't have anything against piercings. After all, I have double pieced ears (which in their day were considered quite trendy), and I have a few friends with pierced navels, and what not. Personally, I'm too much of a wimp to pierce anything (I nearly threw up the second time I got my ears pierced), and I'll never be skinny enough to have my belly button pierced.

However, I do think piercings should be reserved for, oh, say, sixteen year olds. Middle schoolers really don't need to be running out getting their tongues, belly buttons and lips pierced. Heck, most of them are lucky they can manage to wash their face once a day, let alone take care of a piercing. Besides, in our student handbook and school code of conduct, it specifically states that the only piercings allowed are those on ears.

But the kids never read the fine print, do they? (And we know the parents don't.)

In any case, we have had a rash of kids on our team, usually our little skater squirts, are have decided that they simply cannot live without a pierced lip or nose.

And, instead of getting parental permission, they're simply taking ice cubes, numbing their chosen body part and jamming needles and safety pins through it.

How they keep from thowing up is beyond me. I nearly throw up thinking about it.

Mr. Social Studies commented that the piercings wouldn't be bad if we could convince them to do, say, four across the lips and safety pin the mouth closed so they couldn't talk. (No luck there.)

In the meantime, we're sending kids up to the office nearly every day with a pin through a body part, where they get checked by the nurse, and a parent called, and a lecture given to. And still, they come to school with bandaides, infected lips, and puffy red noses.

Gross.

Hey kids, wait until you're sixteen and get a professional to do the job, okay?