Piercing Ideas For Sportsmen

If ever there was a relentlessly un-hip rascal dragged kicking and screaming into the methods, madness and modes of today’s society, that’d be me!

I was signing books a few weeks back down at Bass Pro Shops in Savannah, and every once in a great while I’d simply stop, look around and feel like it was feeding time at the zoo. All manner of man’s alleged progeny, from orangutans to a couple of missing links, can be found wandering up and down the shopping malls of our fair state with metal dangling everywhere.

And then I went on vacation…

For the first part of the week, it was simply a matter of going from bad to worse. Fortunately, relaxation took over. I began to look at things from a laid-back, sublime, well-rested eye. And came to the mind-blowing conclusion — without any hallucinogenic additives! — that, you know, hey, some of this asinine-appearing “fashion” just may have a place after all.

So I bought me a nose ring.

Yeah, big ol’ brass one. Got it down in Daytona. You can find any kind of ring for any part of your anatomy you care to name. And several you don’t care to. But them ol’ boys will puncture you without compunction, and have you dressed up like a White House Christmas tree, with doo-dads dangling everywhere.

I figure my nose ring looks really good by today’s societal standards, but doubt not that it has function as well as form.

Duck hunting, for instance. It never fails: I’ll call and call and finally a fair flock of mallards will flap in. As soon as I’ve shot/missed three times, my call is suddenly nowhere to be found. It takes a half-hour of rummaging to retrieve it, usually from the muck underfoot, then another to un-splatter and get it blowing again.

Now, however, the problem is solved! I figger to put a chain on the call just long enough to reach lip level, then attach the other end to my nose ring.

Presto! No more lost quacker! And at the end of the hunt, simply un-snap the chain, hopefully without ripping any nearby nose hide, and store the call in its proper place!

And how about this…

You ladies out there, help me out here; you know for a fact that it’s almost purely a sin to go shopping and make only one tiny purchase. If you care to save money at all, look at the package prices, right?

That’s how I got my earrings so cheap. Bright, shiny silver. I think they give me that “pirate” look. On the other hand, I’ve heard several references to what I look like and pirates weren’t mentioned. Oh well…

I get confused about my earrings. Something about if you wear only one, and it’s on a certain side of your head then your wife’s not likely to be all that feminine-appearing or some such. Anyways, I figgered I needed two, one bigger than the other’n.

Say I get lost in the swamp —  again — and nobody knows perzactly where I am. All that is required is to turn my left side to the sun and bounce reflections that any eye could catch. Like the Indians used to do with mirrors, sending signals from mountain to mountain. That left earring is about the size of my palm, and has stretched the hangy-down part of my ear halfway down my neck, giving me kind of a whop-sided look that always draws a stare from passersby.

At least I guess that’s what they’re looking at…

The right-side earring is much smaller. Folds up, too, so that just afore I’m about to touch off a big-bore, I cram it into my ear like a plug to ward off some of the “wham.”

Don’t know that it’s helping much, though, because the stretch on the other appendage means the hole on that side of my head is about silver-dollar-sized.

I really took a liking to the belly rings. Thought about connecting my grunt call to another piece of chain to keep it in my lap while up a tree. But the artist took a smug look at my belly and muttered something about running short of chain…

But once I paid for the earrings, the sly little boy/girl (I just can’t tell these days!) behind the counter proudly announced that I received a FREE pair of nipple rings! And what do I use them for? Uh, well, I just like to play with them occasionally. Guess that’s another column for another magazine…

One more thing…

If there is one hotter-than-hot item amongst today’s trendy set, it is the tattoo. Everybody’s got one, from tiny hearts to body-length murals. I wanted me one, too, and don’t believe that Daytona doesn’t have a tattoo shop on every corner. So I began checking them out.

So much ink, so many patterns, so much hide to cover…

I wanted something original, you know? Thought about using the vacant (?) forehead space between my earrings to put “How’s yer,”  then go down my left forearm with “Mommer” and up my right one with “n’em?”

But the artist cited a lack of balance. Said the words were off, too.

He suggested I look further…

I sort of liked the Polynesian warrior look ala Mike Tyson, but supposin’ I meet Tyson one day, and he takes offense at me mimicking his face? You know how he is about ears. ‘Course, if he goes to gnawing on me, all I have to do is turn my deaf ear to him, and he’s like to come away with some busted teeth.

Finally, a brilliant idea came to me: camouflage! A full-face, camouflage tattoo!

No more looking up into the sun in a dove field and turning birds that have spotted that facial shine. No more netting for facial camouflage in the deer woods. Sneak out the window at night and the neighbors will never know… Uh oh, wrong magazine again!

The artist happily agreed that my face needed something; he was stumped, however, on just what it was. Besides, I lost him with terms like Shadow Grass, Deep Woods, Advantage…

So the tattoo is out for now. But I’m going to keep a close eye on these new-fangled accessories they’re jabbing and stapling all over folks these days, especially when it comes to the back and shoulders.

See, I’ve been needing a hanger for my climbing stand…

Order your copy of Daryl Gay’s books, “Rabbit Stompin’ And Other Homegrown Safari Tactics”

$19.95 plus $3 S&H and “Life On the Back Page,” $14.95 plus
$3 S&H from www.darylgay.com or
16 Press, 219 Brookwood Drive,
Dublin, GA, 31021.