dream.20081109: new tattoo
¶ by Rob FrieselI go in for a haircut but the salon has become a tattoo parlor instead. Â My usual stylist is there with the tattoo machine, preparing the needles and the inks. Â We make some chit-chat, catching up about The Boy and that time my refrigerator exploded. Â She asks me what I want and where I want it. Â I produce a sketch of a knife superimposed over a stylized Celtic knot of a circle; the tip of the knife is shaped like a scorpion’s stinger and the hilt has a distinct shape as well, suggesting the legs of the scorpion. Â She explains to me that she has to work from certain templates or else she needs to charge me a significant amount more. Â Plus (she goes on) she would really prefer to apply the tattoo to my arm and not my chest. Â I relent and she preps the skin on my upper left arm. Â Before she can make the first prick though, I pull back. Â We need to renegotiate.
I get her to agree to do the tattoo on my chest like I’d originally asked — not giving a damn if she alleges that it will hurt more. Â She has a template for similar tattoo but it’s not quite the similar enough for me. Â We try to work out a compromise where she executes the tattoo as it appears in her template (viz., a standard straight dagger piercing a black circle) but sneaks in the barbed tip and the correct curve of the hilt. Â She fusses over it all though, hemming and hawing about what might happen to her if she got caught and how she wasn’t really confident enough in her free-hand tattooing anyway.
I put my shirt on and walk out even as she tries to convince me otherwise.
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