Ok I meant to post this like last week but I just havent had the time. However, traffic has required me to leave for school incredibly early so here I sit, super early and ready to tell my tale.

Being that Im not too old to take advantage of a free vacation with my parents, I went to Cherokee, NC about two weeks ago. All was well and dandy until I suddenly found my self in need of a septum retainer and with only my pincher. I dont actually have a retainer in the right size anyways. So, being that the climate was different up there, and I always for get my pincher is up there and rubbing-thus giving my self a nose bleed, I decided it was kind of necessary. I guess the dryer air had already irritated my nose, but with the healing scratches it was driving me INSANE. So I decided to see if I couldnt find a retainer to use for just a few days.

I had seen a tattoo shop on the way in to town. It didnt look as horribly sketchy as some of the other places in town so I decided to see if they were like so many other tattoo studios-also a piercin studio. I go in, and to my great suprise the shop didnt look nearly as bad as I was expecting. I walk over to a case that seems to have some metal in it and one of the artists walks over to help me. I tell him what Im looking for and he informs me that they are only a tattoo studio and do not pierce or sell jewelery.The metal that I had seen turned out not to be jewelry after all. So Im all bummed out thinking Ive got the rest of the week to be trying to stealthily scratch my nose. But wait! Im in luck, he knows a place in the next town over that sells jewelry and its only 10 min away.

Hop in the car and off I go. I arrive to find out that ita a music/clothing/smoke shop. Grrrrreat. But I go in anyways- maybe they know someone else in town. I look in their jewlery case and its not great but most of it looks *decent.* So I ask the girl behind the counter if there is a piercing shop in town. She informs me that there is one-2 hours away. Right, back to the case I go. I look for and find a septum retainer. When I asked to see it, she tells me she didnt think they had any. I have to literally guide her to the section of them. ( I guess I had assumed she had so many piercings, including two anchors, that she would know what a septum retainer looked like. My bad).

Heres where it gets scary. I asked her if they had any ones made of a non metal that I could see.I didnt want to buy the unlabeled metal one if I didnt have to. So the girl asks me if I am allergic to metal and I tell her that the only kind of metal I can really wear long term is Titanium. She looked at me in pure shock and amazement and said "They make Ti jewlery now, my piercer said they didnt??!!" .....yeah.... So tell her yes and assuming that they did not have non metal or Ti retainers ask for the next best thing- SS. She then informed me that she could not start getting pierced until they made 'steel' jewlery and that she was happy because she had been able to get her snakebites then. ....The same snakebites , im assuming, that were crooked and pissy looking. She then proceeded to tell me that she had a great piercer with a great selection of jewelry and that I should check them out. I prefer not to go to a piercer who didnt even know that Ti jewelry was available and pierces crooked. I countered her with tribe's and my piercer's sites.

I really want to go hug my piercers or something, thats just disturbing. I mean was she also pierced with a safety pin and alcohol? I bought a retainer, that Im guessing is on par with Hot Topic jewelry, wore it for a day or two until the scratches healed and popped my pincher back in.

*hides*

Anyways, sorry my short tale was so long but Ive got nothing but time on my hands.

Now everyone go hug their piercers!!