Chirky

Saturday afternoon I went with Bianca to find an "Indian Jeweler" in Irving so she could get her nose pierced. We found SG, the place recommended to her by a friend, and parked.

Bianca had never been to an Indian jeweler before, and didn't know what to
expect. I have, and did know. THIS WASN'T IT.

It was part of a run-down strip of businesses. In the front half of the store,
SG sold beautiful saris. We walked past the saris, down a shady-looking hall. On
our left was a room that was used for shaping eyebrows, and it was divided by a
curtain so that someone else could get a massage. The hall opened into a larger
room, which looked even more questionable than the hallway.

This room had two counters: one that was an empty jewelry case, and the other
with sketchy pieces of jewelry in it. The second counter also had a basket of
bangle-bracelets, random brown mascaras, and purple lip gloss. We each got to
choose one for free, so Bianca took two bangle bracelets. The owner of the shop
went into a store room, pulled out a plastic grocery bag, and started untying
it.

From the bag, she began pulling their selection of nosepins. Why they were not
already in the jewelry case, I do not know. Why she was pulling them from a
plastic bag in the storeroom, I do not know. Why we stayed there instead of
running away quickly, I do not know.

Bianca, before

After waiting for the equipment and jewelry to sterilize in the autoclave, and
numbing Bianca's nose (a luxury that I did NOT have), they ushered us to a
separate room, which was the hair salon and manicure portion of the shop. (Just
to recap, so far this "Indian Jeweler" has a clothing section of the store, a
jewelry section, a makeup section, an eyebrow section, a massage section, a hair
salon section, and a nail section. All rolled up into one tiny shop, about as
shady as a run-down gas station.) Bianca, looking petrified, sat in a barber
chair and stared at the hollow needle that was waiting to impale her nostril.

Numbing Bianca's Nose

As the needle pierced her cartilage and slid through her nose, Bianca wrung my
arm. It felt like an anaconda had pounced upon its prey and was squeezing all
signs of life from its lifeless body before devouring it. I knew the pain that
Bianca was experiencing, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF HER NOSE BEING NUMBED AND MINE
WASN'T, AND WERE YOU REALLY GOING THROUGH THAT MUCH PAIN? BECAUSE YOUR NOSE WAS
NUMBED, BIANCA!!!

In fact, I knew the pain so well that I noticed a black shadow descending in the
room, and everyone's voices sounded hollow and far away. My living arm reached
behind me to steady myself on the counter, and I felt the unmistakable need to
both vomit and collapse at the same time. I didn't, thankfully, because my vomit
and my body would have landed in Bianca's lap.

Saturday, late night and Sunday, REALLY early morning
I went to bed at 11:00 Saturday night. Just because I went to bed doesn't mean I
fell asleep. Most of you know by now that I have a problem with insomnia. My
mind was reeling with thoughts of the day and people who were on my heart.

Bianca called me at 1:30am, and since I was still awake and I knew that she was
freaking out about whether her nosepin would stay in, I decided to answer the
phone. I walked into our study, sat on the floor, and listened while Bianca
freaked out. She thought her nose pin was popping too far out, she couldn't keep
it in, and she was afraid her piercing would grow closed. I told her to come
over to my house in the morning and I'd help her figure it out. I also told her
I'd take her to my Indian Jeweler, a REAL Indian Jeweler, so that she could
understand the full shady-ness of the run-down gas station all-in-one stop shop
where her nose was pierced.

I went back to bed. Annoyed that I couldn't sleep, I felt that God was telling
me, "Jessica, What are a few hours of sleep compared to the life of this young
woman?" I immediately got out of bed, went back into the study, and sat down at
the computer. Four hours later, I finished a letter to a friend. I was finally
tired, but left the computer feeling fulfilled, and full of awe for the Lord.

Sunday afternoon
Twelve hours after her original phone call, I heard my phone ring again. Bianca
sounded a little distraught, and I was having a hard time imagining why she
wasn't at my house yet. I quickly learned that on the highway, she had heard her
car make a loud pop and saw a black car part fly down the road behind her.
Unsure what that might have been, she kept driving. Soon, she noticed black
smoke coming out the back of her car, as well as out of her vents and steering
wheel.

Freaking out, and rightfully so, she made her way to a gas station. Roger and I
went to pick her up.

We inspected her car, cleaned it out, and made arrangements for a tow truck.

And waited.

And waited while I stuck my fingers up Bianca's nose and inspected it with a
flashlight to see if the hole had really grown closed. The top half of the hole
was still open, as evidenced by the nose pin hanging half-way out of her face.

And waited.

An hour later, when I was supposed to meet another friend for "girl time," Roger
and Bianca and I were all still at the gas station. I called Holly and asked how
desperate she was for girl time. She was craving it enough to drive up to the
gas station, wait with us a little while longer, and then spend the day with us
while we tried to fix Bianca's nose.

We finally left the keys with the attendant and left. Bianca and Holly and I
went to my Indian Jeweler, and Roger and Adam (Holly's husband) went home.

When we walked in, Bianca was like, "Whoa. This looks like a jewelry store.
Like, Zales." I politely responded that it was the Bailey Banks & Biddle of
Indian jewelry, and that once I saw the shop in Irving yesterday, I should have
turned around and driven Bianca here. We consulted with the owner of Govindji's
on our options, purchased a nose pin that would actually stay in her nose, and
left.

We decided to drive to my parent's house, since they lived so close, rather than
driving all the way back to my home just to realize that we indeed needed
Govindji's to re-pierce Bianca's nose. Holly and I searched for a sharp earring
while Bianca stuck ice cubes up her nose to try to numb it.

Once we sterilized the earring, the procedure began.

Bianca, sitting on the toilet, grabbed Holly's hands and squeezed. Hard. It's
surprising that Holly survived without her metacarpals breaking.

I wedged myself between the wall and the toilet, and began to torture Bianca. It
was almost like giving birth. We'd push for a while, and then a little while
longer, until she couldn�t stand it any longer. We would take a five second
break while Bianca resisted the urge to punch me, and then begin again.

At just the moment I realized that Bianca was about to coil back her fist to
push me away, Holly and I saw the earring start to poke through the inside of
Bianca's nose. Three seconds later, I felt this faint "pop," as the gold earring
post made its way through the interior of Bianca's nasal cavity. Holly and I
cheered, and Bianca cringed in pain.

It reminded me of middle school youth trips to Colorado, where we pierced each
other's ears while biting into cookies to mask the pain. Except we had no
cookies for Bianca. And her nose was already 3/4 pierced when we started.

We let her rest for a moment, and prepare for the coming task: to remove the
opal earring we used to pierce her nose with, and replace it with one of the
THREE nose pins Bianca had collected in the past twenty four hours.

Only because we love Bianca and wanted to lighten the mood, Holly and I laughed
at her while she had the gigantic opal earring in her nose. It looked like a fat
tick!

We started the process again, and after much drama were able to get one of the
nosepins in her nose and twist it so that it would stay. Bianca layed down for a
few minutes to rest, and we were done!

Pierced!

Sunday, late-ish afternoon
Since Bianca now had no car, Holly and I volunteered to drive her back to
Denton. On the way there, we all got pedicures. After all the drama of the
weekend, we deserved them! Unfortunately, the one nail salon in Lewisville we
found had no hot water.

I sat in the pedicure spa chair for half an hour while the manager of the salon
boiled three separate pots of water, poured them into my pedicure spa, and mixed
them with cold water. By the time they were finished, the water was lukewarm. I
didn't mind, because it was better than ICE COLD, which is what I felt when I
first sank my feet into the water.

When we were all finished (and by that I mean when I was finally finished
because even though we all started at the same time, I had the no-hot-water
incident, and Holly and Bianca were already being painted by the time I was
putting my feet in the lukewarm water) we continued on our way to take Bianca
home.

We helped her carry everything that was once in her car up to her dorm room.
Which, might I add, was three flights of stairs and I'm a wonderful friend. And
so is Holly, because SHE DIDN'T COMPLAIN THE WHOLE TIME we were running all
these errands.

Bianca had a meeting that night, and realized she had no way to get there. So we
all got in the car, again, and drove and drove and u-turned, and drove, and
u-turned again, and drove until we reached our destination in Argyle. Where?
That's what I said too.

On our way back to Dallas, Holly and I stopped for dinner at Pei Wei. We bonded
over our kid's meal of rice and honey seared chicken. We bonded while we drove.
We got to my house and dipped our hands in hot paraffin wax, while talking some
more. And after I drove Holly home, we sat in my car for another hour and a half
talking and bonding, and laughing, and talking about how ironic God can be. Our
paths keep crossing. Our lives keep taking similar turns.

The great thing is, God is not ironic at all. He's very purposeful.

Even in knowing that Bianca no longer has a car.