Adventures in Tattooing

Sometimes, when you get together with friends, things happen.

Crazy things, if alcohol is involved.

Like this.

Ha, ha! Just kidding. I mean, I did get a giant-ass arm-sleeve tattoo during a sangria*-fueled gathering with friends, but it was a stick-on. 

When I came home, my husband noticed immediately. This is very impressive for him because I do have two for-realsies tattoos and it took him NINE months to notice their existence and that was only after he read about them in my book. (Also worth noting, when I got the real tatts I kept asking the artist, “Can you go smaller?)

“Huh,” he said when I walked in with my new, possibly squid ink** tattoo that stretched from the top of my shoulder to just past my wrist. “Interesting.”

I went and stood in front of my son.

“That’s temporary, right?”

People were much more receptive at Target when I popped in for a return the next morning.

“I LOVE your tattoo,” the guy posted at the entrance gushed when I strutted in, dressed in a tank top.

“Thanks!” I leaned in conspiratorially and lowered my voice. “It’s not real.”

At the return desk, the woman behind the counter came out from behind the plexiglass to inspect my arm. 

“Oh My God. Let me look at your tattoo. That is so cool.”

I pointed out the spot in my elbow pit where flowers and leaves were beginning to pill and flake off. 

“It’s a stick on.”

“DON’T TELL PEOPLE!” she shrieked. “Let them think it’s real. You should think about really doing it, or at least have someone trace over it in Sharpie so it lasts longer. It looks good.”

When I came home and reported the positive response from outside the household, No. 2 said, “Honestly, I think you should do it for real.”

“Honestly,” my husband said, “I think you should not.”

When it came time to say good-bye, the tatt did not go quietly in the night. I rubbed it with olive oil then coconut oil and then finally cotton balls soaked in alcohol (the non-drinking kind).

Well, it mostly came off. There is a fair amount of black, tar-y looking residue running up the length of my right arm. The tattoo definitely looked better. 

*Sangria is barely alcohol, so we really can’t blame it on the booze. We’re just goofs.

**I mean, I don’t know that it’s really squid ink. I also don’t know that it’s not. It did have some staying power.