I once knew a woman whose father was a mob fellow with a crew that specialized in dangling eyeballs. When someone disrespected the family, the crew would be dispatched to seize the miscreant, and then they would pop from its socket an eyeball. The eyeball would dangle there, on its stalk, arest against the cheek.

No permanent damage was done—the eyeball could fairly easily be reinserted—but because people are not accustomed to viewing the world from an eyeball dangling on the cheek, the procedure tended to firmly impress on the miscreant the necessity of de-miscreanting, and at once.