Three years ago I went to a tattoo shop that I knew nothing about it or what to expect. I was only 15 and running on impulse. My ex boyfriend went with me to get his tongue pierced to so I wouldn't be alone. I should have been more careful but I was only 15 and didn't really have much sense. I believe this is why tattoo shops require identification or parental consent.
At A Glance Author Jeni Peni Contact ravebaby26@aol.com IAM Goth*Peachez When N/A Artist Rose Studio some shop Location San Antonio, TX After school ( I was only a sophomore at the time) I met my ex boyfriend at his car and off we were to the closest tattoo shop we could find. We got there around 2 p.m. but they were yet to open for another 20 minutes. so I sat at the door wondering if they were going to ask me for id or if they would turn me away. I wondered if I really wanted this and what my mom would say. Was I wasting money on something so premature.
The piercer a chubby spiky headed lady named rose showed up to let us in. She smiled as she let us in indicating she was friendly. We walked in and let her set up. About 10 minutes later she asked us what she could do for us. We told her we wanted our tongues pierced. She said the price would be $100 for both combined with the jewelry. She never asked for id and I was relived until my ex boyfriend opened his big mouth and said " oh she's only 15 is that ok". She looked at me and said "That's close enough".
We were lead into the back room which took on the appearance of a dentists office or a hospital room. I let Jason go first and everything went smoothly so my doubts started to fade. Yay I was next to go under the needle. She had me wash my mouth out with Listerine only for a couple of seconds. She forgot to dry off my tongue and used a pen black ballpoint pen to mark my tongue. I didn't get a chance to look at it other wise I would have seen it was off center. Rose told me she was going to use a line in my tongue to guide her but all it did was guide her to mess up.
She clamped my tongue and proceeded to tell me about a boy she pierced yesterday. She said she had hit a vein in his tongue but since he didn't complain about all the blood she didn't charge him. Bells should have been going off in my head but instead of walking out I sat there stupidly and laughed. She pulled out the needle and pierced my tongue but it didn't hurt only a pinch. I could feel it off center and that bothered me.
Rose assured me it was centered even though you could tell it wasn't. She said I was going to have swelling but in a couple of days it would go down. The pain started when I got home. I had to rush home to get ready for work and at the time I was working in fast food. With all my luck I was put on drive through and none of the customers could understand me. I was sent home early when my tongue started to bleed. The bar was so off center that my speech was horrible. No one could understand me and it hurt to try to talk.
3 weeks past and my tongue were still swollen to twice its size and I still could not talk clearly. I was having numbness and I thought screw it. So I took it out with out thinking I could trap possible infection in. Five minutes after I took out the tongue ring out my tongue was back to normal size, I could eat comfortably and I could talk. This did not scare me off from piercing.
Two years later when I was 17 I went with my mom to a professional piercer at Adrenaline Tattoos in Austin and he did a wonderful job. He walked through all the procedures with me and told me what to look out for. I was pierced and I had a 14 gauge 5/8 tongue ring put in. My tongue didn't even swell this time and I could talk fine. Since then I have had many body modifications but all have been researched and the piercers have been looked into.
I strongly encourage you to not go to just any piercer. If they are willing to pierce minors then they are not very safe and not very professional no matter how nice they seem. If you need parental consent it really is worth waiting for instead of having to get something re-pierced.
I still love my tongue piercing and its one of my favorite peircings.