Holes

Today we headed to Portland so that The Star could get yet another piercing. This one is just in her ear lobe, above the first one, but nothing extreme.

It surprised her to be reminded that once I had had three holes in each lobe and one in the cartilage at the top of my ear, apparently known as the pinna. I never thought of it as "body modification"--it was the just the 80s and all those earrings helped to balance all those bracelets.

I also shared my ear piercing story:

During the summer I was 15, I was dropped off at the Bend River Mall with my best friend Becky Smith (known to my kids as Becky 2, since she was the second of three BFFs with that name) to get our ears pierced, the second set of holes for both of us. But it turns out that we needed to have a signed permission slip, since we weren't yet 16. What to do?

I had a friend who was 21 or 22 at the time who worked at the K-Mart in the same mall. The girl at the jewelry store knew him and said that all she needed was an adult signature on the forms. So we hurried to the paint department at the K-Mart, found Kelly and convinced him to sign our permission slips. Voila!

Today I had to allow my actual drivers license to be photocopied on the back side of the form that both The Star and I had to sign.

A few other things about Kelly: He took me to see Footloose on the day it opened. He drove a very old Volkswagen that had no heat. He kissed me--a few times. We went to an under-21 dance club in Portland (Confetti's?) when he was 25 and I was 18. His birthday is March 17, St. Patrick's Day. He once claimed that he was gay to get out of a difficult, intense relationship with a woman (not me). He may really have been gay.

I haven't seen Kelly since 1988. Googling him immediately brought me to his Facebook--he's still living in Portland. Funny how the holes in your past can be so quickly filled.