Now, before you get any crazy ideas about where it is, let me tell you that it's in my ... wallet.

Yes, my wallet. That's because I had to take this week's piercing out. It didn't get infected or anything like that -- I had to take it out because my parents decided to come for a surprise visit and I didn't want my mother to have a heart attack.

So, let's move on to the first real adventure in my ongoing series of "James' Adventures in Piercing."

Now week three was an adventure.

It started out normal (well, as normal as possible for a reporter who gets a body part pierced every week). I went to get my piercing as I do every week and thought I'd be in and out in no time.

Well, I was almost "out" in no time. My faithful fans, I say this with great shame and remorse: I almost passed out.

It all started on a clear Wednesday afternoon at the end of January. The weather was crisp and there was that get-a-big-needle-shoved-through-your-lip feeling in the air.

So I did the normal thing -- I went to Art of the Ages Inc., 103 S. Pugh St.

For those of you who don't know, the labret is the area between your bottom lip and chin. It's really just a waste of space when you think about it. Might as well adorn it -- all it does is get in the way when you're shaving.

Which brings me to my new feature: the "tips of the week." This week's first tip is for the guys. Unless you want the hair growth, shave before you get it done. As you can imagine, getting a razor around the little metal ball is going to be a bitch. Phil Clouser, owner of Art of the Ages, suggests plucking the hair with tweezers. Ouch!

The preparation for the piercing was pretty much the same as for the eyebrow. First, the area to be pierced was cleaned off and again the blue mark was put on my face.

This particular piercing should be as centered as possible. The problem is that no one's face is symmetrical (unless you're that chick who keeps getting the plastic surgery to look like Barbie).

To find the right spot, Phil examined my face with great detail. He stared at my face and said, "OK, your nose is curved to the right, your bottom lip is to the left and your top teeth don't match up with the bottom ones."

Is there anything good there, Phil?

"Well, your ears are pretty symmetrical," he said. "But your right ear is bigger than your left and it's lower."

Hey, thanks Phil. Looks like that modeling contract just went down the tubes.

But actually Phil was just trying to find a spot on my face to center the piercing, and eventually went with my chin.

Because every lip is different, Phil measured my lip to find the perfect length of jewelry for me. We went with a 14-gauge, three-eighths-inch barbell.

The barbell for the labret is different from those in my tongue and eyebrow. Instead of having a ball on each side of the bar, there is only one ball that sits on the outer part of the lip. The other side is a disc that lays flat against your teeth and gums.

Now for the actual piercing. You're getting sick of this, I know, but the clamp came out again and Phil squeezed it onto my lip. Then he told me to take a deep breath as he put the needle into place, and said I should exhale slowly as the needle penetrated my lip.

The pain wasn't that bad -- a little worse than the eyebrow, but not as bad as the time my ex-girlfriend kicked me between the legs. The jewelry was put through my lip, screwed on and all that was left was to wash up the blood.

As Phil was explaining to me the ins and outs of labret after-care, I noticed his voice had changed. He was sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher: "Wha wha-wha-wha wha wha."

I also noticed it had gotten really hot in there and my stomach felt like it normally does on Saturday morning after a night on the town.

"Are you alright?" Phil asked me.

I wasn't. I was green. I was sweating. I felt sick. More importantly, I had another piece of metal in my face.

This brings me to my second tip of the week: Make sure you eat before you get pierced.

When you get pierced you experience an adrenaline rush. For some people this means they are on a high for a little while. Others, like me, feel nauseated. But after getting some sugar in my system, I felt fine.

The opportunity to get sick in a strange place and have a steel rod thrust through my lip cost $50. At Green Top, 318 E. College Ave., the piercing costs the same, while at Exotic Zombie body piercing, 225 W. Beaver Ave., it'll run you 60 bills. Forbidden Fruit, 110 Hetzel St., is the cheapest place in town at $40.

If you're going to get this piercing, make sure you want to keep it. You can't just take it out and put it back whenever you want. First of all, it's a pain to get out, and secondly, it closes up pretty quick. After having mine for about four days I took it out and it closed up in less than four hours.

This adventure has made me rethink this column. Why am I doing this? Is it worth the hassle? If I'm so money, why don't I know it?

So should I stop doing this column? You're the ones that read it, so what do you think?

Well, tune in next Friday to see what happens. You know, with all this blood I'm losing, Sera-Tec is probably pretty jealous.