Gauges

Brent Riggs of Job for a Cowboy is pretty white for an African tribesman.

Straight out of the Amazon, comes the latest fashion statement that scenesters use to scare Grandpa. This time, I'm referring to ear gauging; a popular form of body modification that's like ear piercing, except multiplied by a thousand. Regrettable tattoos and tongue studs are things that can be covered up and hidden in situations where they aren't appropriate, but there's not a lot you can to do to be incognito about tea saucer sized expressways that are dug clear through your fucking earlobes.

Gauges can range from tiny black plugs, all the way up to obnoxious, baseball-sized 'flesh tunnels'. A common practice in gauging is starting off small, and then stretching your earlobes out with increasingly larger plugs on a monthly basis. When a month goes by, and your self-mutilated body barely manages to heal itself, you replace your plug with the next size up, tearing your festering ear hole one quarter of a millimeter larger. Soon, the damage becomes permanent; and just like with exposed tattoos, when you finally grow the fuck up and remember what a job interview is, it will require expensive surgery to fix. Unless your job interview is at a tattoo parlor that appreciates this kind of self-destruction, or at a warehouse or sewage plant where nobody has to look at you, you're out of luck. Long John Silver's has a reputation to uphold, after all. 

Come on, dude...

As a metalhead, ear piercings are a bit more up in the air than some of your other exterior guidelines, but a short while of browsing Myspace Music will immediately tell you that gauges specifically are a scenester trademark, and as such, should be avoided. Your best bet is to follow in the footsteps of the rock legends you look up to, and go without completely. Let me put it this way: Rob Halford doesn't wear earrings, and he's a flaming homosexual. If he won't even do it, it has to mean something.

If you are a metalhead who has gauged his ears past the point of them closing on their own, can't afford cosmetic surgery, and want to redeem yourself, fret not! Steak knives are cheap, sharp, serrated, and can easily be sanitized in bleach. Or ammonia. Or probably a mixture of both.

Now fix it.