A few years ago, I bought a 1945 gold peso in Mexico City with the intention of coming home, finding a matching one on eBay, and turning the set into a pair of earrings. Which is exactly what I did. I instructed my neighborhood jeweler to solder hooks on the back and to make sure one would be worn tails-side-out and the other heads-side-out. He did what I said and charged me $40. I picked them up a week later on my way to JFK and put them on in the cab. It was an overnight flight and by the time I was getting my luggage at the carousel, I realized the heads-side-out earring was gone. Multiple calls to the airline over the course of a few weeks yielded nothing and eventually I came to terms with just wearing the one coin in my right ear, which, according to middle-school lore, I think means I’m gay.
This pretty boring story is why until a few years ago I never changed my earrings or took them out — not once in 11 years — and was honestly the happier for it. For those 11 years (before the peso incident), I wore tiny hoop earrings meant for newborn babies. They were 14-karat gold and bought on Amazon in the “girls fashion earrings” section for $20. I didn’t fret about them one single time. Their sole purpose was to fill the hole (I hate the way a pierced ear with no earring in it looks) and they performed the job perfectly. From a few feet away, they were invisible; up close they were sweet and delicate. Whenever a woman commented on them, which was often considering how discreet they are, I’d text her the link. If you too are tired of suffering the emotional fallout from minor earring-related tragedies like mine, I recommend baby hoops. You can’t feel them, you can barely see them, and best of all they’ll never break your heart. I am tired of wearing just one peso, so this summer, I’m reverting back.
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