My younger sister desperately wanted pierced ears when she was in elementary school. Our mother told her that she could get some self-piercing earrings if she wanted it that badly. They were hoops that slowly squeezed themselves through your earlobes. And she toughed it out. I thought “If M can do that, so can I. ” and I tried them out.

Nope.

I didn’t make it 24 hours. Those things hurt. My little sister is tough!

A couple of years later, when I was in junior high (before they included 6th grade and started calling it middle school), a friend got her ears pierced at the mall and I got permission to get mine done, too. That gun was genius. Pop! and it was done. I kept them clean and they healed up nicely.

Several years later, I was working at a jewelry store, living on my own, and they did piercings with the gun. I got a second piercing in each ear to wear studs over hoops or other dangling earrings. My mother was not impressed. She asked me when I was going to get my nose done. For. A. Week.

All I could do was roll my eyes and wait for her to get tired of it.

A little while later, might have been a year, might have been a few months, M got one extra hole in one ear. She called me and asked “When is your mother going to quit asking me when I’m getting my nose done?” I said, “Give it a week and she’ll get bored with it.”

I could hear the eye roll over the phone.

Time passed. Our youngest sister went to college.

When she came home with her nose pierced (having skipped over ears entirely), our mother had the grace to say, “I should have shut up about that. Shouldn’t I?”