Author: Jackie Pick

Jackie Pick is a former teacher and current writer living in the Chicago area. She is a contributing author to multiple anthologies, including Multiples Illuminated, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real about Motherhood, Here in the Middle, as well as the and the literary magazines The Sun and Selfish. She received Honorable Mention from the Mark Twain House and Museum for her entry in the Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition. Jackie is a contributing writer at Humor Outcasts, and her essays have been featured on various online sites including McSweeney's, Belladonna Comedy, Mamalode, The HerStories Project, and Scary Mommy. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, Jackie is co-creator and co-writer of the award-winning short film Fixed Up, and a proud member of the 2017 Chicago cast of Listen To Your Mother.

Piercing. Day 52 of 100 Days of Writing

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I enjoyed my first migraine today.  During the throbbing and gripping onto the couch to stop the house from rocking back and forth, I worked very hard to ignore my loud offspring as they played full-frontal Monopoly and no-holds-barred Rush Hour.  One twin has, at age almost six, mastered a level of yelling/vocal fry that is, on ordinary days, about as grating as The View.  On my hopefully one-time-only Migraine Day (Allons enfants de la patrie/Le jour de gloire est arrivé) the sound was pain-inducing.  It’s not intentional, it’s not malicious, it’s just him being almost 6 on a summer day after spending three hours in math camp.

To block the Joyful Noise, I distracted myself:

Names for Piercing Shops that Sound Not-So-Vaguely Inappropriate

* Dangling
* Studs n’ Holes
* Knots Landing
* Drop ‘Em
* Huggies
* Screw Back, Push Back, French Back, Latch Back, Lever Back
* Apallanging Gang
* House O’ Crusties
* Dermal Punch n’ Go
* Fourchette’s Sake
* Hafata Matata
* Prince Albert (Yes We Can!)

This, people, is why we need the ACA.