Tattoo You

Sometimes I act without thinking and regret it. Like this morning when I felt all spring-like, put on a cotton floral skirt and stepped outside into 25 mph winds. And it’s not like I shouldn’t have seen that coming since local weather forecasters had been telling us for two days that we were going to get blown away today. Parts of town can now tell you what color and brand of underwear I prefer. How nice. Sometimes I just get all enthused about something and jump in with both feet before turning on my brain. It’s usually not a huge deal, but it can lead me into places I didn’t expect, especially on the internet.

Last night I was diddling around on the internet, acting like I had time to diddle around on the internet, looking for that website where you can make yourself into a tattoo on a hunky man’s body. I said to myself, “Hula it’s been ages since you plastered yourself onto David Beckham’s abs. See if there’s a tattoo option for Johnny Depp’s fanny.” Only I couldn’t think of the name of that website, so I just Googled it and in my haste typed “tattoo yourself” into the search bar. Lord, have mercy, did that pull up some interesting stuff. Mostly about making your own homemade tattoos. It appears there are people who do that kind of thing all of the time. To save money. I’ve never been desperate enough for a tattoo to whip out some sewing needles and ink and poke myself hundreds of times in an attempt to save a few bucks, but some people do. And they like to document it for the whole world wide web to see. Of course, it appears much of this happens at parties where adult beverages and possibly illegal substances are involved. I say “possibly” as if to give them the benefit of the doubt but frankly, many of the pictures I saw led me to believe that grow lights and tall weeds were just out of camera range. Kind of like the night of my senior prom when my date and I stopped to pick up another couple at his friend’s house and after about ten minutes in the house with friend’s hippie parents I said, “Self, there is weed in THIS house.” I got me and my puffy blue dress out of there as quickly as possible. A couple of months later, cops raided that house and found numerous marijuana plants growing upstairs. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Or marijuana.

Anyway, I read all about giving yourself a tattoo. The basic supplies involve sewing needles, pencils or ink pens and indigo ink or acrylic paint, but that’s not really recommended. Ya’ think? There were step by step instructions that involved such nuggets as you might not want to do it on someone who has a disease, and wash your hands before starting. Oh, and there might be some bleeding involved. However, there were no tips for what to do when your buddy overdoses on rum while trying to anesthetize himself for getting poked and scraped by his stoned friends. It never ceases to amaze me the things people will do, but it gets better.

You know at the bottom of the Google page where it recommends other topics that are similar to yours? They had a link to sites for removing your tattoos at home with acid. I didn’t have the nerve to look. I found the Photofunia page instead and slapped myself on a few pictures. They didn’t have a Johnny Depp option, but it would be a whole lot easier to remove myself from his backside than it would be to burn off my own arm with some acid if they did.