Tattoos with Friends - Number 4

A couple years ago my friend Dre and I went out to California to visit a mutual friend of ours.  We were notorious for randomness and shenanigans when the three of us would get together - Hell Dre and I are prone to that ourselves when he and I get together, but all of that aside, we ended up getting tattoos.  Dre had always been fond of a tattoo shop back here in Omaha called American Tattoo, and we happened to come across an American Tattoo shop there in California. If I remember correctly, IF, we kind of came across it by accident.  Either that, or Dre looked for American Tattoo specifically, which I suppose sounds more plausible, but it was more fun to say we had come across it by accident, but anyway - we went to American Tattoo.

I’m going to preface this tattoo experience by saying I’m a rather white person (you probably noticed that in my first post from when I was 18 - not much has changed in reference to my skin color - I don’t tan), so with that being said, I tend to sunburn fairly easily being as fair skinned as I am.  Being out in California for the first time, I became rather burnt.  Please don’t ask why in the world I would consider getting a tattoo whilst being sunburnt -  I don’t know why; I’m just a little crazy like that. Okay? Okay, good. So, the three of us went to the tattoo shop only to find they were closing in just a few minutes. Damn - no tattoo today; you’d think that’s what happened, but no.  They were completely cool and still wanted to tattoo all three of us. Dre planned to get a Celtic symbol on the inner part of his upper arm, Daniela wanted a dragon behind her ear, and I wanted.... Well, I’ll save that for the “Tattoo Description” portion of the post - in due time, in due time. 

The guy who was going to be my artist came up to me (no doubt to inspect his canvas - and inspect he did... *coughs*) and placed his hands right on my chest, and yes, he was touching my boobs - 

Tattoo Guy: Wow, you’re really sunburnt!
Me: ......
Tattoo Guy: Seriously, you’re burnt (hands released from chest, then placed them back)
Me: ..... *stares down at his hands that are so clearly fondling my boobs*
Tattoo Guy: So, you want this on your shoulder, huh?
Me: .....Yeah......

_________________________________________________________________

March 21, 2010 - American Tattoo (Bonsall, CA)
 https://www.facebook.com/pages/AMERICAN-TATTOO-Bonsall/285957426609

Location: Left Upper (front portion) Shoulder

Tattoo: Japanese Cherry Blossoms

Story: So, I’m going to be rather brief about this story (because I’ll revisit it in a later post), but the base reason for this tattoo was that I really hate flowers. But you just got a flower tattoo, you say, well yes I did - Japanese Cherry Blossoms are (were now) the only flower I actually liked.  I have a great disdain for flowers and HATE getting them.  You may remember that I have roses tattooed on my back and might be thinking it makes absolutely zero sense for someone who hates flowers so fervently as I do to have gotten roses, but that tattoo was for my mom; she loved roses. I think the only things she may have loved more were Harley Davidsons and eagles. Anyway, onward and forward with the Japanese Cherry Blossom!!!

There it is - It’s small, isn’t it? Yeah, I didn’t have much money to drop on a tattoo, so that’s what I got. It was still a good piece for how much I spent, and honestly, the guy only charged me $75 for that tattoo.  If you remember, the guy in Wichita wanted to charge me $150 for that tiny one on the back of my neck! Crazy, right?! I ended up paying $100 (tipped him $25), despite the fact that he was most definitely fondling my boobs the whole time he was tattooing me.  Meh, whatever right? I eventually just brushed it off and didn’t care. 

You may still be wondering if it was a mistake to get a tattoo with my sunburn... You know what? I almost fell asleep!!! I tell you what, I throughly enjoyed getting this tattoo; and it turned out very well. This is where I learned how to impulsively get a tattoo and have it turn out well. Here’s the secret ----- GO TO A REPUTABLE TATTOO SHOP!!! That may sound like a “DUH,” but so many people make the same mistakes I used to by just going in to a random shop, taking the first artist available, not looking at his portfolio (which I didn’t do with this guy, but I trust Dre’s judgement on pretty much everything, so I just went with it), and end up with something that needs to be fixed later. No tattoo artist likes fixing another tattoo artist’s fuck up.  I’m sure my current tattoo artist will be ever so pleased when he goes in to touch up my dragonfly tattoo (this statement comes heavily laden with sarcasm).

Aaaaaaaand back to the tattoo experience - You know how they always say not to immerse yourself in water, go swimming, or anything like that after a tattoo? Well, all three of us ignored that rule and went splashing around in the ocean the next day. I didn’t even think about it at first; I just went right in (and by went right in, I really mean walked carefully - it was holy shit cold - then was jumped from behind and dunked), and it wasn’t until after leaving the water ever so suddenly that I realized I was swimming with a fresh tattoo!!! We all kind of paused for a moment, contemplated what we were doing, and continued to play in the water and the sand. Nothing bad came of playing in the water, getting buried in the sand, and hanging out in the sun.  

My Japanese Cherry Blossom continued to look magnificent

Until.....

--More on that later.