Peace, Love and Two Tattoos (Guest Post)

(Today's post was written by Brooke over at Daily Dose of Dahl. She's an amazing woman with a blog I've been addicted to since I first stumbled upon it. I want to thank her so much for helping me out during some *fun* rollercoaster times in life.)





When Morgan asked me to guest post for her, after I finished beaming and immediately replying hell to the yeah I’ll do it, I started to try and figure out what I’m going to write about. Kids? My general goofiness? My slightly alarming but often hilarious dating history? My ex husband? Ooooooh, the possibilities.

I only have two tattoos. Both of them on are on my back, right around my shoulder area, and one on each side. I worked in banking for a long time, and I wanted ink that I could hide or show at will. At the time I got my first tattoo, I was married to my first husband. Zippy was a nice enough guy, big hearted and a lot of fun. He was a great boyfriend. Unfortunately he was a lousy husband. Everyone but the two of us knew the marriage was doomed, and honestly? I think we knew this too, even if neither of us would admit it. Sometimes you make really bad decisions for what you think are the right reasons. Or to prove that you are right and everyone else on the planet is wrong. That never works out so well for me. Universe: 459, Me: 2. Not even close. Sigh.


Zippy was a bit of a drinker. When I say a bit of a drinker, I mean when started drinking, he was almost certainly going to get smashed. When he got smashed, he did stupid things. Stupid things like try to climb into a go-go cage at a nightclub where some chick had decided to strip – with me and the girls’ very , very big boyfriend standing right there. I mean, you want to dance with someone, I have no issue with that. If you want to take their bra off for them and dry hump them in public? Well, I’m going to have to file that under “Not a very good idea”.

(Not Brooke's tattoo, I don't think....)

So, let’s just take that example and me at my word that Zippy had a bit of a wild side. But when I started talking about actually getting a tattoo, he got all 1950 man o’the house on me. And he forbid me – forbid me – to get a tattoo. So what did I do? I went and got the damn thing. Like, the very next day. With glee, if I may say so. My brother worked down the street from a tattoo shop, so he knew the guys there and had gotten a few tattoos from them already. So that’s where I went. The tattoo artist, her name was Leah, sat down with me and drew what I wanted. It’s a sun/moon combination and I picked it for a million different reasons, but I didn’t want the trendy sun/moons that were so popular in the late 1990’s. I loved it from the moment I saw it and I love it to this day. Zippy was furious, of course, not that I really cared since that was part of the joy of my first ink. Needless to say, the marriage didn’t last much longer.

Fast forward a few years and Robert (who is now my husband) and I went to pick up his sister for the weekend. Mandy was at basic training/AIT school at Ft. Jackson and every time she could get off base we pretty much went and got her for the weekend. She decided she wanted to go get a tattoo. Not a problem. I took her to the same place I got my first tattoo. As we milled around the shop looking at all the wall art, I was telling her that it wasn’t so bad, wouldn’t hurt so much, blah, blah, blah. I should mention at this point that my brother and I had experienced a bit of a falling out (we have that pattern, he and I) and he was still very good friends with the main tattoo artist in the shop. Shane, the tattoo artist, was also the only person working when we went.

Nevertheless, Mandy decided to get a butterfly on her hip and I finally picked out a Chinese symbol to put on my other shoulder. I don’t remember who went first, what I do remember is lots and lots of pain. As in, the symbol was being carved into my bone type of pain. And Shane was just smiling the whole time. How do I know? We took pictures, of course. I’m sure it had nothing to do with my pep talk about how it was no big deal to get a tattoo and how it stung but didn’t really hurt and blah, blah, blah. I’m also sure it had nothing to do with the fact that if my brother had been in there at the time, he would likely have tried to saw me in half with the tattoo needle, so Shane decided to help him get started. All I can say is that the solid black tattoo I currently sport that’s supposed to symbolize ‘peace’ probably says “F You, bitch’ or “I eat pig shit”. As we were leaving the tattoo shop, Mandy was like, “Oh, that wasn’t bad at all!” I’m trying so hard not to cry that all I can do is nod enthusiastically. Yeah, not bad. Not bad at all. ::Snort!:: Universe : 460, Me: 2.

(Just for the record, I still haven’t gotten another tattoo, and I believe Mandy went on to get about 5 or 6 more. More power to her. Seriously.)