Help! I’ve got an earring at 41
Back when I was 20, my hair cascading down to my shoulders, jeans shredded at the knee, I thought it wise to complete the look with a lip ring. Two years later, there I was, supine in an emergency room, surrounded by doctors craning their necks to look and laugh, while I desperately rued my life choices. As the local anesthetic took hold, my mind returned to the night before: four pints deep and finding the ring broken at the join, I had squeezed the two ends together, clamping it tighter than my lip could ever accommodate. By morning, it had turned blue. With a mouth swollen like I’d kissed a wasp nest, I went for a post-op pint, only for it to dribble out of the existing hole. No more piercings ever again, I swore.
