In college, I got my nose pierced because I wanted some kind of facial adornment and an eyebrow piercing seemed too scary. The stud came out constantly, but I was usually able to recover it from my pillow, and when I couldn't I just stuck an earring in there to keep the hole from closing until I bought a new one. Then, on a mountain bike ride in Fruita in 2009, I must have accidentally pulled the stud out while performing a Farmer John (it was cold), because afterwards it was nowhere to be found. Not having ready access to a tattoo/piercing shop at the campsite, I figured that was that, and let the hole close up.
Or so I thought.
This summer, I've been racing a riding with a lot of other girls, and several of them have nose piercings of varying size and ostentatiousness, and all of them are around my age. I still like the way nose studs look, so out of curiosity I tried sticking an earring through the depression still visible in my nose. Lo and behold, it went right through, so the following week I rode my bike to a piercing parlor on the CU campus and checked out the goods. The store offered basic little studs for $10 each in various colors, with an option to upgrade to free crystal replacements for $20. I'd never had a crystal fall out of a stud before, so I got one 'installed' at the place and took another one home for backup.
About a month later, I woke up to find that the crystal had come out of my stud (damn!). Unfortunately, I had had the guy at the piercing place corkscrew the post before putting it in so that it would be nearly impossible for it to get pulled out, and I didn't want to deal with it, so I just left the unbedazzled stud there for a while, figuring it didn't make that big a difference.
Then the other night, I decided enough was enough, and it was time to bring in the backup. I tugged and swirled the stud for a while, to no avail, and then rummaged around in the tool box for some needlenose pliers. Those also had no effect. I returned the pliers to the tool box and extracted the coup de grace: wire cutters. Drawn by the commotion and cursing, Mike came into the bathroom to find me bracing myself for the snip, and promptly offered his assistance. I then had four hands in or around my nose, but after some nervous flinching and giggling, the post was extricated from my nostril with the requisite boogers in tow. The new stud was inserted with much less ado, and voila, facial accessory accomplished.
The moral of the story is: 30 is not too old to have a nose piercing, and for heaven's sake just shell out for the more expensive stud.
