Another step towards adulthood.................................

My youngest got her navel pierced last night. Since she will not turn eighteen until this April, mom needed to be with her and give permission for her to have the procedure done. See, moms can be beneficial even with older children.

So, we head out for the tattoo place and are right on time (a rarity in and of itself) when one of us realize that not only did my youngest not have her birth certificate, she also did not have her license or her debit card to pay for the piercing. Her rational for not having the license and debit card was, "I always leave my purse in my car and we didn't take my car so I forgot to get them." My response, " And just when did you realize we were not taking your car? When you were clearing the snow off the truck, starting the truck so it could warm up, or within the last fifteen minutes that you have been riding in the truck?" A little snotty I know, but this was my time she was wasting. We never did come up with an excuse about not getting the birth certificate (we needed this to prove I was her mom since we have different last names), but I am still blaming her for forgetting it.

Through the miracle of cell phones (though this was a big frustration as well as we were driving through the one part of our area in which we NEVER have continuous service, plus the phone had a low battery and kept beeping every fer seconds. Grrrrr...) we were able to contact the place and change her appointment to give us enough time to go back home and get what was needed. Poor thing, this gave mom and extra twenty minutes to lecture her on responsibility, and how I wouldn't be doing these things once she turned eighteen so she had better start paying more attention, blah, blah, blah... Gosh I can be a bitch at times, but that is a mother's job now isn't it?

Okay, so we finally arrive, proper paperwork in hand, and the reality of what my baby is about to do to herself hits me as I look at all the staff and patrons in the place full of piercings and tattoos. "Come on! It is one little navel piercing. But what if it sets off something in her and she ends up looking like these people? I'll just have to kick her butt if that happens, relax."

So then this really sweet young girl comes up to us, holds out her hand in welcome and says, "Hi, I'm Jill and I'll be piercing you tonight." I don't know why this struck me as funny( it was actually very professional), but I did. It sounded like what a wait person says when you go out to eat at a restaurant. She helped my youngest pick out which stud she wanted in her navel, and off we went to the piercing room. The room looked just like a doctors office, which I am sure was intentional to make people feel more comfortable with the idea of letting someone be invasive with one of their body parts. Jill made a big deal of telling us how everything was sterilized and I found this interesting. Not so much the details, but the fact that they have to work so hard to overcome bad practices of other places (I think nail salons have the same problem). While I must admit that I have never seriously thought about getting a tattoo or a body piercing (besides my ears which I have had done for years... the first holes done by a friend, sterilizing the needle with a match and then shoving it into the potato she held behind my ear to keep it from going into my neck I guess. Pretty gross hu?) so I have never looked into what should occur, but her spiel made me feel better just the same.

When it came time for the actual event, my youngest lay on the table and was shaking from head to foot. This is what she does when she gets nervous. The more nervous, the more shaking, and I would rate this shaking a twelve on a zero to ten scale. I held her hand, and refrained from commenting on how the needle that Jill was planning on using looked just like one of my darning needles (big and dull) as not to make her pass out or anything dramatic like that.

In a couple of minutes the whole thing was over, and within a couple more minutes I had talked her into sitting up ( okay, I more like ordered her to "just sit up, if it hurts it hurts. A little too late to worry about that now isn't it?") and checking it out in the mirror. After my youngest looked and liked, Jill looked and pronounced it "just a wee bit crooked." Upon further investigation it was determined that the piercing was indeed straight, but the tissue in my youngest's navel was pulling the bottom part of the stud just slightly off center making it look crooked IF ONE STARED DEAD AT IT WITH MY YOUNGEST HOLDING PERFECTLY STILL AND KNEW WHAT THEY WERE LOOKING FOR it kinda looked crooked! My goodness. I told Jill not to loose any sleep over it. After all it isn't her fault that my youngest has a faulty navel now is it? She still felt bad and refunded us five dollars off the price. We would have been stupid not to take that deal now wouldn't we?

Then on the way home, we stopped at Subway (where her boyfriend works) so she could show him her studded navel. He was waiting on the local police officers (we don't have a donut shop so the cops hang out at subway instead), who were joking with him that there must be something new in his life. Big mouth that I am, when he said, "No. Not really." I piped up and said, "Well, his girlfriend just got her navel pierced, which is why she keeps yelling at me not to make her laugh." Turns out this was news to the boyfriend as well as to the policemen. My youngest said," I hadn't told him yet in case I chickened out." How can she not yet know that being my kid chickening out is NOT an option? Oh well, she is young, and still has lots of time to figure that one out.