Sixteen-year-old Sissy Sheridan, who is the host of a Nickelodeon web series called DIY With Me and a wildly popular TikToker, recently fell victim to an incident that brings a whole new hazard to pandemic life.
Sheridan went to get a much anticipated third ear piercing at an Icing by Claire's store near her home in Sterling, Virginia. But she ended up getting much more than she bargained for.
The face mask she was wearing got pierced into her ear along with an earring.
In the aftermath, Sheridan took to her TikTok profile to share what happened in a video.Speaking to BuzzFeed News, Sissy described how the incident went down.
"I'm wearing two masks because one covered more than the other. The blue one didn't cover as much, and I knew the woman [doing the piercing] would be pretty close to me."
"She does the first one, which is the right ear, and that was the one [she got] the mask stuck in. I had no idea. I'm just sitting in the chair. I didn't feel anything. There was no sign the mask had been punctured in the ear."
"[My mask] won't come off, so I thought it might have gotten stuck behind my ear or hair. I was like, mom, can you help me get it off? She's trying to get it out. I'm like, oh my god, did she pierce the mask in my ear?"
Sissy's mother Leisa did all she could to cut the mask free but... well, when it's rammed inside your ear by a piercing gun there's only so much you can do.
And because her ears were so sore, taking the earrings out was out of the question.
And then things went from bad to worse.
Sissy's mom shared the photos with a manager at Claire's and asked for a refund. She was told they would only be issued a refund if Sissy brought the earring back to the store—an absurd policy that took Leisa by surprise.
"I am shocked that they are arguing about the refund when they were clearly negligent."
Thankfully, a representative from Claire's spoke with BuzzFeed to confirm they will be refunding the cost of the piercing.
And on Monday, Sissy posted a follow-up TikTok in which she admitted that this whole thing is kind of funny.
On social media, many people couldn't help but find Sheridan's debacle hilarious.
While others were more sympathetic.
But most people were pretty much in the "what did you expect?" camp.
Let's all let this be a lesson. As Sissy captioned her TikTok video:
"moral of the story. don't get your ears pierced during a pandemic"
Solid advice.
