January 5, 2025

Phalluses, Piercings, and the Perils of Google Coins

Pressing my face against the icy window of my study-abroad class' tour bus, I spot “Emma’s Body Art,” its windows lined with piercing advertisements. A memory surfaces of my interview with Professor Jenny, who was leading our trip to Reykjavik, Iceland. She had mentioned, “Some people even went all out and got piercings or tattoos on their free day.” At the time, I’d responded with an enthusiastic, “That’s amazing!” fully convinced it was far too adventurous for me. After all, I prided myself on living a low-risk, sometimes high-reward life. But now, as the bus rolls past Emma’s Body Art, I find myself touching my earlobes, still fascinated with the simple piercings I’d received as a baby, and thinking, “What’s one more?”

Somewhere around 4:00 PM, I’m wandering through the Icelandic Phallological Museum with most of my classmates. While this wasn’t exactly how I envisioned spending my free day, I’d chosen to step outside my comfort zone. Staring at a mold of some famous person’s phallus (whose name escapes me now), I turn to my classmate Allison and blurt out, “I think I want to get my ears pierced today. My doubles.” To my surprise, she replies, “I’ve been wanting to get my helix pierced.” Just like that, we decide to go together.

Well, almost. As we leave the maze of phalluses, we sit near a phallus-themed café and carefully weigh the risks versus rewards. Both being pre-law students, we share a compulsion for making the “right” decision. So how do we arrive at the “correct” choice? By asking Google to flip a coin.

My classmate, a former computer science major, explains the mechanics of what makes an AI coin flip truly random. I, on the other hand, trust Google’s coin flip implicitly. Coincidentally, we bond over the fact that we both use coin flips for many of our daily life decisions.

First, we flip the coin to decide whether heads or tails will mean “go.” The coin determines that heads means go.

“Best two out of three?” I suggest. “That’s the only way to do it,” she agrees.

I flip. The coin lands on heads. "Go". Next flip: tails. "Don’t go". Final flip: tails. "Don’t go".

Cutting through the silence, Allison says, “Well, if we didn’t do best two out of three, it would’ve said go, right? I always do tails as the positive and heads as the negative. Let’s try it that way.”

So we flip again, this time with tails meaning "go" and heads meaning "don’t go". Tails… Heads… Heads… Don’t go.

“Maybe it’s just my phone,” I offer. We agree to try flipping on Allison’s phone. Using the same system of tails meaning go, we flip.

Allison’s phone then lands on heads five times in a row. Steve Jobs himself seems to be telling us: don’t go.

Desperate for clarity, I check my daily horoscope for the first time since I was 13. It mentions something vague about “Don't make impulsive decisions that confuse or worry ...” Inconclusive.

Allison then checks the piercing website and finds it says they closed ten minutes ago. Odd, since appointments were supposed to be available until 8:00 PM.

Finally, we decide to take control of our own fate and walk there, reasoning that we’ll see for ourselves if it’s open.

After stopping at a hot dog stand, we set off with a posse of five classmates who had watched the emotional turmoil by the phallus cafe and were all equally curious about the outcome. We arrive at Emma’s Body Art, and I step inside to ask if they have availability for two piercings. The receptionist greets us with a smile and hands over the paperwork. An hour later, we walk out with matching earrings.

Looking in the mirror at my sparkling, fake-diamond studs, I wonder why I ever trusted a coin more than myself in the first place.