It's Either a Big Tattoo, or You Got Attacked by a Shark

It is no secret that I love tattoos. Tattoos have a way of making people more attractive. Or at least to me they do. I just love them. I love getting them, looking at them, talking about them...and apparently, sitting and watching my girlfriend get one that takes 2 days and a total of almost 7 hours.

Because I have nothing else to do.

Not really. But really, because I enjoy the whole art of tattooing.

Tattoos are sexy. It's just the truth in my universe.

Rachel got a BIG tattoo this month. And I watched her get it. And it put the bees on my side, which I thought were pretty big, into the meh, kinda tiny, tattoo category. You can read about her painful experience, right here.

 

We thought it would be kinda entertaining to share my experience of her giant tattoo, so here goes...

Day One: We arrived to do line work and shading, and we had everything we needed to stay distracted for up to 3 hours. Water, gum, and the internet. Seems simple enough. I sat and chatted with Rachel and Travis, the ah-mazing tattoo artist at Tron City Tattoo, about music and movies. I knew that Rachel would want to relive this painful experience, so I snapped several photos of her - without telling her, of course - as the process went on. At some point about 2 and a half hours in, I just stopped talking, because neither of them was up to keep talking. Rachel was clenching her teeth, and was clearly still lying there based solely on sheer willpower. And Travis was, well, it was 10pm, he was tired. It was hard to tell from my standpoint who was more done - she was certainly in more paint, but he was yawning and stretching a whole lot.

And me? I was just ready to get some dinner and get to bed. Three hours is a long time to sit still while your best friend's boobs are showing!

Day Two: We took a girl's day Saturday to get the color done...tattoo in the afternoon, followed by drinks and hanging out. This time was a little less than 3 hours of sitting. The shop was pretty empty, and I read aloud a lot of Buzzfeed before we got to the level of pain where I stopped talking and Rachel cried - I wasn't sure if she was crying because the tattoo hurt or because she was biting through her own hand flesh, but I can only assume it was tattoo related.

I should add that red tattoo ink will in fact make it look as though you are bleeding to death on the table. We did have some laughs about that, because Travis looked more like a surgeon with blood all over his gloves than anything.

All in all, watching someone get a tattoo did 2 things for me. One, it made me want to never get my hip bone tattooed. And two, it made me want to get everything but my hip bone tattooed.

That's the thing with tattoos. You can't have just one - they are addicting little things!