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L'Uma Naughty
White Gold
I got my nose pierced in college in the early 1990s, feeling
like it was an important accomplishment, and I was a better
person than before. More lovable. More presentable to the
world at large.
My friend who inspired me to do this was a half-Jamaican,
half-Irish artist and graduate student, Jean. She ran a gallery
when she wasn't teaching Italian at the university. I thought
she was the most incredible human being on the planet -- that,
and she had good taste in men. We both had had an affair with
the same guy. He was still friends with her, but not with
me.
"Spin it. You have to spin it," Jean instructed me. Easy enough.
So I spun the nose ring regularly, rotating it so that the
skin doesn't start growing back and get stuck. "You have to
stick your finger in your nose, push the stem (or whatever
it's called) up...." She said it all so calmly, with such
dignity. But I was beginning to think that being Regulation
Cool was slightly ridiculous, with my finger up my nose,
twirling a piece of metal.
My attitude must have been psychically absorbed by the little
ornament, because the redness was getting worse, not better,
and the diamond stud was sinking lower and lower into my skin,
despite my spin consciousness. One day it didn't move at all.
I couldn't push the stud up, I couldn't spin.
I ran to the campus health center. It was a Saturday morning
and full staff wasn't available. After some runaround I landed
at a school emergency room of sorts, and two male doctors
put me up on the examination table, and looked at my nose.
"It's infected," one doctor said.
"We have to get that out," said the other doctor.
They were looking at me like, You are obviously not a real
hipster. You are so fake, if this happened to you.
The doctors strategized how to release the doomed ornament
from my face, as the logistics, it turned out, were quite
complicated. They told me not to breathe, so that the stud
lock thingie didn't go racing up my nose canal and wedge itself
into my brain. One doctor covered my eyes with his hand, so
that with the amount of force needed to dislodge the thing
didn't jam the pliers into my eyes. Everything was taken into
account: angle, timing, strategy.
He tugged.
He tugged again.
Impressive really. This damn thing didn't want to go anywhere.
The doctor holding the pliers started to make dentist analogies,
as a joke. I don't remember if I laughed or not.
I was starting to imagine that I'd have to go to a real hospital,
get anesthetized and have nose surgery. Would my student health
insurance cover Vanity Gone Awry Operations? I was thinking
how this would never have happened to Jean, who had already
graduated to a white gold hoop, making her look ethnic, hip,
smart, and sexy. I could already imagine her book jacket headshot,
and all her credentials and awards in academia and art. All
because of the nose ring. White gold, no less. Even the way
she said it: "white gold." Someone should have hired her to
say that, it had hypnotic sales power. Like it was laced with
nicotine.
Suddenly the thing popped. It was out. There was a moment
of disbelief before we all registered that this bizarre crisis
was over. I had the jigger thing, Doctor with Pliers had the
diamond, and everything was fine. My nose was bleeding. They
had me sit there for a bit, holding Kleenex to my ex-piercing.
I told them I was going to get another piercing, once this
healed. The doctors looked at me like I was really pathetic,
but I wasn't too concerned about that. I had the phrase "white
gold" echoing in my head, and there was no turning back.
It did heal, and I did pierce my nose again, with a larger
stud. Jean and I didn't see much of each other anymore. After
a few weeks, I replaced the diamond stud with a hoop. A few
months later, I was so sick of looking in the mirror and seeing
that damn nose ring, I took it out and gave up on it completely.
The phrase 'white gold' just sounded like a cheap brand of
beer. The spell was over.
-- Rasha Refaie
 
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