Last year I had the pleasure of interviewing Master Roshambollah (Jason Simmons to the civilian world), one of the brightest stars of the international Rock Paper Scissors scene.
Perhaps you've read about the burgeoning sport (Rolling Stone did a big spread). Or maybe you've seen the footage on "The Best Damn Sports Show Period." What's that? You didn't know that people actually do this competitively? Like, beyond age 8? You thought it was something your parents taught you so you could resolve disputes over whose turn it was to ride in the front on the way to Granny's?
Silly people.
There is indeed a global network of cutthroat, fist-flinging RPS machines. Go ahead. Google 'em. You'll see.
But RPS is not the point of this post. No, the point actually has more to do with a "point," literally--as in the one through my tongue.
You see, during the get-to-know-you portion of my interview with Master R, I learned that for his day job, he's a piercing artist at a D.C. tattoo studio.
"Really?" I said at the time. "So, if I ever decide to follow through on this fantasy of getting my tongue pierced--something I've thought of doing for a few years--I could go see you?"
"Yup," he said.
Neat.
This pleased me to no end. Not only did I have an acquaintance who could now pierce my tongue (much better than going to some anonymous punk in a leather collar, if you ask me), I had one who was a bona fide local celebrity, and who delighted in wearing velvet tuxedos and crazy straw hats while obliterating an opponent with hand-scissors of steel.
Yay!
And so it was that I found myself ascending the stairs to Fatty's Custom Tattooz yesterday, heart beating ever so slightly faster with the semi-nerve-wracking knowledge that I was about to have a very sharp object driven through the middle of my tongue.
The climb was a bit…rancid. The carpeted stairs reeked of cat piss. Or at least, I hope it was cat piss. I suppose it could have been some nasty fluid spilled by the psychic on the second floor, or by a freaked-out human customer of Fatty's on the third floor, but I chose at that moment to assume that the stench came from some "lesser," and fuzzier, beast. Master R would never work at a less-than-savory place.
I arrived at the studio to find that Master R had just stepped out for coffee. So I filled out the paperwork and waited, trying to remain calm. Play it cool, I told myself. Pace. Browse the tattoos on the walls. Oh, look! A chart describing the mystical properties of Indian carpet-weaving icons. Great!
After about five minutes, Master R returned, and he whisked me to the back of the studio. The piercing area was a small, stark room, brightly lit, with a dentist's-style reclining chair covered in paper barely fitting along one side of the room. At the end of the room were dozens of drawers containing itty-bitty plastic bags of various body jewelry.
Turns out Master R was a Master P (as in piercer), too. He gently talked me through the whole process while moving at a rapid enough pace that I wouldn't have time to start hyperventilating with anxiety. He even had time to tell me about the most recent RPS tournament, in Toronto, for which he provided color commentary on "The Best Damn Sports Show."
"I got to do it with Tom Arnold and everything," he said.
Wow. Just…wow.
So I sat still and stuck out my tongue and moved it up and down and out and up and out as he drew with purple dye to mark the point of insertion. I held a mirror to my doodled-upon tongue and gave it one last look before its topography would be changed forever.
"Okay, now lay back and relax," he said, and he brought out his little forceps thingy. "I'm going to use this to hold your tongue still; you'll feel pressure but it won't hurt."
"And then the piercing won't be crazy-painful, just a sort of intense pinching, right?" I said, demonstrating that I'd done my Internet homework.
"Yeah, it shouldn't hurt too bad," he said. "Most people say it's one of the less-intense piercings you can get."
"Cool. I figured that if I could sit through a tattoo, this would be a cinch."
He smiled. And lowered the forceps.
Once his little tool was on, he was probably done in about 10 seconds: pierce, insert jewelry, screw on first little ball, ask if I'm doing okay, yes, good, screw on second little ball…presto!
He held out the mirror so I could see what he'd wrought.
When you first get your tongue pierced, though, it's not about how it looks (it won't look really good until a few days later, when the swelling goes down). It's about the sensation--first, of having this thing pressed through your tongue, and second, of having this vertical metal rod stretching from the top to the bottom of the inside of your mouth. The word that best describes the first sensation: Owwee. The second: Weird.
Now, let me relate a few observations for all the tongue-pierce curious:
1. Yes, it hurts. But the ouchy part lasts for only an instant; the rest is just a dull sort of pain. My eyes watered only slightly. And ladies, if you've ever given birth, I imagine that this wouldn't even register as a hangnail in comparison.
2. It didn't bleed. At all. Get yourself a good piercer who knows what he's doing, and you shouldn't bleed, because there's no way he's going to hit those big veins in your tongue that would gush if poked the wrong way.
3. Based on what I'd read, I'd expected my tongue to swell up so much that it would feel like I had a big sock stuck in my mouth. I also imagined it being difficult to breathe. (I have tiny nostrils, so I'm often a mouth-breather, okay?) But I was wrong on both counts. Yes, my tongue is swollen right now. But I can still talk. It's a tad sore and a little tricky depending on the sound I'm trying to make. I find myself grasping for alternative vocabulary in my head when I need to say words that start with "L" or "Th." And the breathing thing? No problem. (I'm still here, aren't I?)
4. Residual pain hasn't been too bad. The first couple of hours after the piercing, I had a headache. That subsided with pills and ice, and all I'm left with is intermittent tongueache.
5. Yes, you do have to go off solid foods for a bit, but that hasn't slowed me down too much. In the past 24 hours I've eaten sorbet, yogurt, cinnamon applesauce, more yogurt, cold Ovaltine (no hot foods allowed right away--they can induce swelling), homemade tapioca pudding, lukewarm tomato soup, more sorbet and more yogurt. And lots of ice. It really does make a noticeable difference in my tongue size. And it's kind of fun moving the little bits around in my mouth, swirling them this way and that around the steel rod in my tongue.
6. Drawback: No alcohol. At least at first. But because this is my last week in D.C., I'm going to take "at first" to mean two or three days. I can't let my pals down and go through these next few days sober! Please.
Beyond all that, there's one cool thing: Realizing that I totally have a steel rod in my tongue. Do airport metal detectors pick up these things? Hmmm… I am now envisioning deliciously fun sticking-tongue-out-at-TSA-worker possibilities. Tehee.
