7/30 – Tatted Up
I didn’t listen to it all, but I don’t love that song. But it fit and black and yellow, you know?
It’s a tattoo post in case you somehow hadn’t calculated as much yet. The how many and they meaning was the target. I have three. These are their stories.
- This is my prison tattoo if I had ever been in prison. I didn’t go as far as to get a teardrop under my eye though. My first foray into getting ink was when I was 17. Yup, wasn’t even legal yet. But when your tattoo artist is a hippie dude named Horse, he’s not exactly asking for ID. I got this tattoo when I was doing a training class in Ohio for a job I had just taken. I remember sitting in my hotel room and looking up tattoo parlors and seeing which one was the closest. Yeah, that’s how I picked the place. I’m nuts.
I really wanted to know what sort of pain I was in for, so I asked Horse to hit me with the gun one time before he started. That crazy bastard did it too. I can basically still see that point in the tattoo where he did that. It’s on my left hip, about the size of a quarter, and it’s a red heart with a sword through it. At this point, it’s almost blurry, but I won’t ever get it touched up or covered up. Memories, yo. - The next time I went in for ink, I was back in PA. I remember quite clearly that I was working at Don Pablo’s. This time, I actually went to the place and talked to the artist before I sat down for ink. I knew from my first one that I could deal with the discomfort, but what I really hated was the noise of the needle. I went in with my headphones and I was ready. I don’t think I made it even past the outline before I took the headphones off. I felt like it was so rude to block out the artist. We started to talk. He laughed and said that he could tell where it hurt more (on the very edges which are sorta in towards my armpit) because I would turn up the music even louder.
As we chatted, we laughed about the posters they had on the ceiling and life in general. I had a design that I had picked out and it had an oval in the center of the tribal band. I didn’t pay much attention to it until he was done and I saw that he took a little artistic license and created a small silhouette in the center. I remember so vividly having my arm wrapped in plastic wrap and having to put on a short-sleeved t-shirt that was still too long for my hostess shift. Even more vividly, I remember both Gerth and Pucci taking that opportunity to punch me in that arm.
Once I was healed, a particularly gullible co-worker continually asked about the “image” in the center of my tattoo. For weeks, at least, I put him off, telling him that I didn’t want to talk about it. He kept bugging me, so he got the smartass special. I told him that when I got the ink, there was nothing in the center, BUT, I was abducted by aliens and when they brought me back, the figure was there. He ate that shit up. I don’t think I ever told him the truth. - The third and last (for now) one I got when I was in Ixtapa, Mexico. Because this is what you do when you have a little free time and some spending cash when you’re a GO in Mexico. Go get tatted and/or pierced. Since people butchered my name all the time (and I was the only one who willingly worked a morning shift my first season), I picked up the moniker Sunshine. Yes, the cheese abounds and I have a sunshine tattoo. On my shoulder. I’d say a good 95% of the time, when someone saw it, they would break out in song. Sunshine. On my shoulders. Makes me happy. Yes, I got tired of hearing it. And yes, I therefore made it ignorant. They sing it and I make the statement, “Depends on which way she’s facing.” BAZINGA!
There you go, the story of my tattoos. I want one more but I have to find someone that I fully trust who is versed in written Japanese or Chinese. I have the phrase, just need a writer. And a good place to put it. Maybe on the inner forearm area.