I really wish I didn't have to pierce. I've been doing it for as long as I've been tattooing. It's a good money-maker, it's quick, it's easy. But the headaches you get over piercings are ten times the ones you get over tattoos. The drama, the temper tantrums, the inability to listen and follow directions; it's all the things that make my stomach turn when piercings walk in the door.
This morning a woman came in looking for a piece of jewelry for her labret. She was done up ultra-ghetto fabulous. False eyelashes, too much lip gloss, dragon lady acrylic nails, clothes three sizes too small with her bra clearly visible in the cutaway back of the shirt. She had lost the ball to her labret, which we could have replaced, but she wanted the whole piece of jewelry. I showed her the labrets with the gemstones, which I said was just like her original piece of jewelry, and she immediately declared they were too expensive. She asked if there was anything bigger that cost less, and I said the hoops were the cheapest. She didn't like the plain ones and asked for a gem. We did have captive bead rings with gemstones on the ball, and they were about ten bucks less than the labret studs. She picked one out and she asked if I'd put it in for free. That's our policy anyhow, so I brought her back to the piercing room.
I donned a pair of gloves and reached up to remove the post of her old jewelry. She jerked back her head and said, "You have gloves on." I couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement, so I simply said, "Yeah, I have gloves on," and reached for the jewelry again. She jerked her head back more and asked why I had gloves on.
"I'm about to put my fingers in your mouth," I replied, and had no idea what the confusion was about. She had told me that she had gotten pierced at our other location, so I knew her piercer had worn gloves.
"What's that on your hand?" She took hold of my index finger and rubbed her thumb over the tip with a puzzled look. "What is that on your hand?" She asked again, rubbing her thumb against the ridge of my fingernail. I almost said, "My fingernail," before she asked, "What is that wet stuff?"
"Oh, that's some lube for the jewelry."
She jerked her head back again. "This gonna hurt," she declared, pressing her lips tightly shut.
"It's not gonna hurt," I reassured her, "the lube is just so the jewelry slips in easier."
She opened her mouth and I pulled out the post. "That hurt!" She yelped.
"Is it a new piercing?" I asked.
"Oh, no, it's old. More than a year. Why?"
"I was wondering. If it hurt, I thought it was a fresh piercing." I inserted the hoop, and bent it back into place, carefully aligning the ends and inserting the ball. "There ya go, all done!" I said.
She leaned over to the table and began to inspect what I had laid out on the dental bib; the empty jewelry packet, the open packet of lube. "I wanna see how it look. Lemme see how it look."
"There's a mirror on the wall behind you."
"Lemme see how the jewelry look," She said with furrowed brow, intently staring at the open packet of lube.
"Look in the mirror."
"Oh." She suddenly seemed startled that I was still there. She went over to the mirror and gasped in horror. "Oh no! No, no no! It goes in my mouth!"
I had no idea what to say. "Um, yeah, it's a piercing in your mouth, basically."
"No, no, no, I can't have that, I can't have that around my lip. Why didn't you explain that to me?"
"Um....I showed you the stud and you said you didn't want it, you asked for something cheaper, and I showed you the hoops and you said that's what you wanted."
"But you didn't tell me it was gonna go in my mouth! You didn't explain that to me."
"I didn't think I had to."
"Well, yeah, I can't have that, I thought it was gonna just hang under my lip or something."
"How would it do that? The studs are the ones that go under your lip, the rings go around your lip."
"Well, I don't want this, I want the other one."
"That's fine, but you have to pay for it."
Her eyes went wide. "What?"
"That's a used pierce of jewelry, I can't put it back and resell it. I have to charge you for it."
"Well, that's--you can't do that!"
"That's how it works, I'm sorry. You can't go into a restaurant, eat half a sandwich and give it back, and have them sell it to someone else, we can't do that here. It was in someone's mouth, it's used, we have to sell it to you."
"But I don't want it!"
"I understand that, ma'am." I was doing my best to stay calm, despite my rising adrenaline. "If there was something wrong with the jewelry, if the stone fell out, or it was broken, we would just give you another one, we can't take back a piece of used jewelry and give you another one because you didn't like it."
"Well, you can just throw that one in the trash."
I was dumbfounded. "This is our product, and we are a business. We pay for the jewelry. We can't just go throwing out stuff because someone didn't like it. You have to pay for it."
"Fine, then give me a deal on the new one, the other one like I wanted."
"I can't do that."
"Why not? Is there a manager I can speak to?"
"I am."
"Well, then, if you're the boss, you can give me a deal, then."
"No, I can't," I said, exhausted of this exchange. "If you go buy a pair of shoes, and you don't like them, you don't get a discount on the next pair. And they don't throw the old ones in the trash. It's called business and that's how it's done."
"No, that ain't right, if you go buy a pair of shoes and they don't fit, you can return them." Her voice started to crack and tears welled up in her eyes. I don't know if that was a sympathy ploy or if she was really that upset. I was sorry she was upset, but the jewelry is not bought with my money. I've given people the wrong size of jewelry before, admitted the mistake, gave them a new piece of jewelry and ate the cost myself. I just have a hard time thinking I need to kowtow to people who expect something for nothing after a change of heart.
"Yes, that's if they don't fit. Or if something's wrong with them. And you haven't worn them. There is nothing wrong with that jewelry. I showed you the studs first, you didn't want to pay that much, so I showed you what's cheaper. You don't like what you picked, and I'm sorry about that. But we can't give away free stuff because of opinions, or lose money because you changed your mind. And we can't just throw out our merchandise, and we can't resell used jewelry. It's a health code violation, there are laws, and we have to follow them. That's all I can tell you."
"You mean!" She spat. Ugh, here we go. "I do it ALL the time, return stuff if I don't like it." I would like to know how this works. I've gone back to return unopened stuff with a receipt in my hand and been turned away for a myriad of reasons. I was too late, sale items were final, certain merchandise cannot be returned, et cetera. I cannot even imagine buying a pair of shoes and trying to return them after I had worn them based on the notion that I didn't like them. I understood her frustration, but I can't just return things or give things away, or at a discount, just because someone didn't like it. Were that the case, we'd have every whiny teenage girl in here trying on navel rings like they were Abercrombie shirts. At the end of the day there would be a heap of jewelry in the corner and we would be hanging a "Going Out Of Business" sign in the front window. You get known for stuff like that quickly, anyway. People will flock to you if they think they're getting one over on you. The last shop I worked at had a ploy like that, we advertised $20.00 tattoos. There were none to be had, our minimum was $40. People came in all day looking for them, and we were expected to upsell them to something more, like it was a damned used car lot. People would scream and yell and carry on that we were liars, and that they were promised this and that--it was awful. It made me sick to my stomach. But I digress.
She paid the money at last and stormed out the door, sniffling and muttering that she was going somewhere else. This, of course, begs the question: if she was too cheap or too broke to pay for what she wanted in the first place, why was she suddenly willing to pay (albeit at a discount) for another piece of jewelry? Everyone wants a deal, I know. I can't figure out how people suddenly get all in an uproar when the deal isn't what they thought it was. Which reminds me of another story about the tattoo grab bag. Stay tuned.....
