Break off another piece...

I lost a piece of youth last week.

No, my big 2-6 was a few weeks ago. I'm so over that. This is about my earring.

I was sleeping in a hotel and got mad at the stupid staticky sheets that were creating a crackly blue lightning storm in my bed at 3 a.m.

In the middle of the Eye of the Storm, I jerked the blanket back and caught my hair in my earring - the tiny silver hoop in the cartilage of my left ear - at the same time. I ended up jerking the stupid earring apart but couldn't get the bent metal out of my ear.

After two days of my ear turning red and throbbing, I made it home and got out the pliers to extract the offending bling-bling. As I wrenched the mangled silver hoop from my ear, I thought about the day I had it pierced.

I was working election night 2000 at the local news/talk station as a reporter. It was all so exciting and plus, I found out that the local piercing joint was offering half-price body decoration if you brought in the "I Voted" sticker. So I voted (not for Bush OR Gore) and went down to the parlor by the college.

It seemed perfectly normal to commemorate my first opportunity to vote in the presidential election by punching a hole in my head. The act was quick and painless ... but I spent the rest of the night holding the headphones away from my left ear, trying not to let the foam pad touch the crusty blood.

Okay, so an extra earring isn't exactly what some juvies today would consider rebellious. But when I got it, it was a rite of passage. Something I knew my parents would try to ignore because they thought I did it to bug them. Something my grandpa would ask me about every few months for years.

"Where did you get THAT?" he'd ask, trying to point at my ear but having his finger veer wildly off because of an accident with a table saw years ago.

"What, Grandpa?" I'd pretend I didn't know and casually pull out my hair tie to cover my ear with long hair.

"That hole in yer head there. You kids. Why would you want to ruin your ears like that? You've got my bey-oo-ti-ful ears," he said, fanning at his much-larger, sticky-out ears. Then he'd grab me in one of his arm-crushing hugs.

The hole is nearly closed now.

I suppose I could get a needle and try to open it up again. But Grandpa's gone now. I don't really care about bugging my parents. And I have a mortgage, a husband and a dog. I think I'll just let it go...