After six years of talking about it...

I finally did it; I got a tattoo. ( my mom & dad are probably rolling their eyes :D ) The husband was supposed to get one, but changed his mind because he couldn’t commit to a design…he needs to work on it more. But I had made my mind up to get one and didn’t want to back down.

I’m pretty certain that the staff thought we were completely out of place the moment we walked into the shop. Both of us pale, un-inked and me visibly nervous. And I think the receptionist laughed at me when I told her, size wise, I didn’t want anything big, just an inchy. I know the artist thought it was funny along with the husband.

I have to say the experience was completely not what I expected. We went to Immortal Images in Charlotte and it was a nice, clean and brightly colored shop. The restroom was one of the cleanest public restrooms I’ve been in… Everybody was friendly, knowledgeable and willing to walk this newbie through the process without rushing me into anything.

I knew when I walked in the door that I was getting a dragonfly. It’s in honor of my little bug, GQ. Like I said before, I was thinking an inch in size on my foot. The receptionist explained with the design I wanted I’d need to go bigger, otherwise in a couple years it’d look like a blob. And it would also have to be on the top of my foot vs. under my inside ankle bone. I was OK with the change in placement, the top of my foot it is. Elf, my tattoo artist, drew a design for me and came to talk me out of getting it on my foot. He explained that the foot takes a beating from the body and most foot tattoos require touch-ups to remain nice looking tattoos. Now I want a tattoo, one tattoo, no more, so the thought of touch-ups made me move the dragonfly up onto my ankle area. I choose the inside of my ankle vs. the outside based on a conversation I had with somebody (can’t remember who) years ago that had one on the outside and said she regretted it, wishing it was on the inside, that way it’s not always in plain view.

I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but this baby H-U-R-T! It wasn’t terrible, it was mostly annoying, but I don’t find myself in the *it’s an addicting art form* category. One and done for me :D The husband was awesome, he sat next to me and let me squeeze the crap out of his hand and fingers. I might have been hurting him more than the tattoo hurt me. He didn’t complain. And my tattoo artist, Elf, was so nice and really did anything he could do to make me comfortable. He and the husband seemed to have the same sense of humor, so we joked through it. At one point I stretched my foot and he asked me if I was trying to grab his nipple with my toes…so completely something the husband would ask if he were in that position. He also joked that I was more of a man now than the husband since I had a tattoo and he didn’t! :D

The picture of my tattoo was the morning after, so it’s still quite red and it looks really red on my pale leg. Once it’s healed nicely I’ll have to post another picture.

Happy Monday!