"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway" - John Wayne

My mother says she knew what kind of person I was when I was six years old. She says everything she needed to know about my personality was clear in June of 1981. That’s when I got my ears pierced.

My mother took me, after much begging and annoying repetition, to have holes drilled into my head. I was, as I recall, vaguely excited as I climbed up into the chair. Most of the other girls in my class had already had their ears pierced. They wore little gold studs or tiny little crosses. I didn’t want those. I wanted silver hoops. What can I say? I’m a rebel and I’ll never ever be any good.

The teenager who worked the “gun” was, for a wonder, very nice. She chatted with me about school and what I had to do to keep the holes from closing up as she lined up the drill. Then she shot me.

Excitement disappeared in a red rage of pain and confusion. I screamed the place down. The teenaged girl dropped the gun and tried to put her arm around me. I jumped off of the stool and backed warily away from her. She had, as far as I was concerned, assaulted me violently and for no apparent reason. How dared she?! I took my mother’s hand and tried to lead her out of the danger zone. Who, after all, knew who would be next? Maybe I was just the beginning! Perhaps the big haired tart would now go on a rampage, running through the department store, screaming maniacally while punching holes in unsuspecting shoppers until the floors ran red with the blood of the innocent eared! We had, I knew, to get away from this crazy person.

My mother took me to sit down and have an orange juice. As I sat there, sipping my juice, I contemplated what had just happened. Nobody had told me getting my ears pierced would hurt. I had asked. I’d done research! I was that kind of a kid. Did it hurt was my first question. Everybody I’d asked had said no and looked at me like I was crazy. The world was full of liars.

I thought about kicking every girl in my class. My mother discouraged this by pointing out that there were more of them and they were all bigger than me. I thought about those pukey little studs and crosses. Who needed pierced ears? Not me! Let that one hole close up, see if I cared! Or it could stay open, I decided. I’d always kind of wanted to be a pirate. Maybe this was my foot in the door to a glorious seafaring career.

After about fifteen minutes my mother and I got up and started walking around the store. We shopped for clothes. We looked at house wares. We tried on shoes. Time, as it is want to do, passed. It had been an hour since my mauling. I reached up and touched my ear. It still hurt. A lot. When I looked at my fingers there were flakes of dried blood on them.

I thought about all those stupid girls. I thought about their twee gold studs and crosses. Screw them, I decided, and the horses they road in on. I told my mother I wanted to go back and get my other ear done. She, doubtful that I’d go through with it, took me back to the jewelry counter.

There she stood. My nemesis. The girl with the gun. She turned around from the display she was arranging and, seeing me, flinched. I walked back to the chair. Without looking at her I climbed up. I sat there as straight as Queen Victoria on a bad day. I crossed my arms over my chest. I looked straight ahead.

The gun slinger walked over to me. “Are you ready,” she asked. I nodded, eyes ahead, chin up, shoulders back. She raised the gun shakily to my unblemished ear. She pulled the trigger and recoiled immediately.

I didn’t make a sound. I climbed off of the chair, back still stiff as a board, and took my mother’s hand. “You didn’t have to do it,” she told me. “Yes, I did,” I said.