I don’t know how many of my readers will be interested, but plastic surgeons are now regularly repairing ear lobes that have been stretched by plugs.
At one point, Oakland resident Coleton Tidwell could fit a golf ball through the hole in his earlobe.
Tidwell, now 21, was among those who purposely stretched their earlobes with plugs or disc earrings in the name of body modification.
Yet after one year with drooping lobes, and some reflection on life, Tidwell found himself sitting in a San Francisco plastic surgeon’s office with his dangling ear parts tucked beneath the sides of a baseball cap.
While it cost him $1800 to look normal again, the man “has gotten a new job at a bank and is glad he had the surgery done.” Good for him. It’s also nice of him not to have joined the “Church of Body Modification” and filed a discrimination lawsuit.
Ordinary piercings are one thing, but that dangling ear lobe stuff is just not my cup of tea. But I’m such a bleeding heart that I have occasionally felt sorry for the young men I have seen ruin their perfectly good looks with these ridiculous plugs.
I would not ban the practice, but I think employers have every right to fire or not hire people who refuse to comply with whatever workplace dress codes they might want.
Comments
4 responses to “Too much of a stretch”
When I was waiting in line to apply for a passport, I tried to make small talk with the guy behind me.
“So where will you be traveling?
“ANYWHERE! This effing country effing sucks!”
“It does?”
“Yeah, I can’t get an effing job effing anyplace!”
-I might be wrong, but it was probably the Frazetta battle scene that was tattooed on his face?
One of my favorite NYC subway ads (from a plastic surgeon) asks in headline type: “Torn earlobes?”
I was going through the line at Target once time, and when I got to the register, the cashier had those big rings in his earlobes. I can handle the smaller ones without too much trouble, but these were HUGE, and they very nearly made me throw up. I literally couldn’t look at him. I was THIS close to asking to speak to a manager, but I decided to get out of there as fast as I could instead. Fortunately, I have not seen the same guy or the same issue there since.
Ink and hardware should be in locations suitable to private viewings. And yes, I do have them. Discretely located. Buy me dinner, and I’ll think about showing you them.