that ain’t metal, that’s just a hole

i don’t know if i’ve gone off about this before…

but even if i have, it annoys me enough to do it again.

i can deal with when the general public calls plugs “gauges”. here in america we are inherently allergic to the metric system for the most part (save for liquor, water bottles, and the drug trade), so we have to have our own. in body jewelry world we use the american wire gauge standard, which was developed for electrical wire so we could standardize thickness of wire and thus regulate electrical current flow. these same archaic measurements are used for body jewelry, whereby the numbers get SMALLER as the jewelry gets BIGGER which makes no sense, but it is what it is. and once jewelry outgrows said standard, they just start using real american measurements. so while my 10g jewelry is bigger than, say, kramer’s 18g jewelry (even though 18 is larger) my 7/16 plugs are even larger. meanwhile, in the rest of the world, 10g is 3mm but my ears are 11mm, because 11 is larger than 3.

but logic doesn’t always find a foothold in this country, just look at the white house. but never mind that now…

…the latest trend is to refer to “jewelry” as “piercings”. i don’t know where this ignorant shit came from. where i’m sitting, it just looks more and more like idiocracy is becoming less a comedy and more a documentary. i have people (mainly younger) that come in and say they need a new nose piercing. i’ll tell them it starts at $55 including the starter jewelry. they’ll reply back with, “no, i already have it pierced, i just need a new PIERCING for it”, to which i’ve replied, “even if it’s a SECOND nose piercing, it’s still $55 including basic starter jewelry”, and i make sure i always include the word “JEWELRY” to see if they’ll catch it and correct themselves…

…but nope.

shit, last time this went on for more than two minutes. they almost walked out. like it’s MY fucking fault they don’t speak english good.

eventually (and it takes so long you almost start to feel bad for them, to the point where other customers will tap them on the shoulder and say, “you mean you need JEWELRY, right?”) they get it (again, sometimes with a “lifeline” from a fellow customer) and we get the deal done. my only hope is, like many fads and slang, this one will fade away over time…before i actually shoot somebody!