Let’s talk tattoos. I have one. Celene has one. Steve has one. Rabia has one. Barboza has a couple. Kelly has one. My cousins Sean and Jo combined probably have about 600. Ivy has a couple. I think Brian even has one. And now, my Aunt Tess has one. It was her birthday present to herself – her 52nd birthday present to herself. Aunt Tess – the woman of supreme conservative sensibilities, and unerring practical decision making skills. Not only does she go out and get a tattoo, but she gets one that – as Celene put it – makes ours look like those of the wimpy heart-and-butterfly-persuasion.

In looking back, I realize my tattoo experience was borderline wholesome; no seedy tatoo parlor, no drunken impulsive decision to have a boyfriend’s name tattooed on a mammary, no alibi concocted to throw off the parentals as to what I was doing. In all actuality it was – in typical Natalie fashion – planned, organized and practically chaperoned.

In planning a trip out to see Ivy, I announced that Arizona would be the setting for the event that would forever go down in history as the day I became one of those kinds of girls, and got a tattoo. As would be expected, she was ecstatic to be my tour guide on such an important occasion. I was planning to stay an entire week and as such, ended up splitting my time between Ivy and Grandma Corrine. My time with Ivy was spent hanging out, going out and laying by the pool. My time with Grandma consisted of her kicking my ass at either Scrabble or Tennis, or both.

So anyway, Ivy calls me at Grandma’s house to get our plans set for our ‘field trip.’ I do my best to be evasive and cryptic on my end of the conversation, trying to not use any phrases that would indicate that I was planning the downfall of my status as a lady. Apparently, I’m not so good at that. Promptly after hanging up the phone with Ivy, Grandma begins to quiz me on our plans for the evening. Somehow, through my halted sentences and one-word answers, she had pieced together the gist of the conversation and proceeds to ask me point-blank: “Are you planning to get a tattoo?” What in the heck did I say on that phone conversation? My immediate instinct is to deny it, but being the Pollyanna I am, I fess up.

Me: “Um, well, yeah.”
G-ma: “Really?”
Me: “Uh, yeah, I kind of decided on it before I even got here.”
G-ma: “You know, I knew this woman once who worked at a bar. She had a really big tattoo on her arm.”

I’m not really sure what she was trying to convey with this statement. Was she trying to tell me that in her mind I would forever be associated with big-tattoo-bar-lady, or was this just her only other experience with a girl actually having a tatoo? So I countered back with the first thing that entered my brain:

Me: “Well, it’s not like Ivy doesn’t have two.”
G-ma: “She does?”

Oops. In all honesty, it wasn’t my intention to try to drag Ivy down with me. I really did think that Grandma knew about Ivy’s tattoos. She has one on her ankle, for God’s sake!

But, my grandma, being the good sport that she always is, decided that it was Ivy and I’s own decision if we wanted to burn in hell forever over this – which is why I probably decided to spill my guts in the first place. To know Grandma Corrine is to know that she is absolutely NOT the type that would ever guilt you or lay down any other sort of head trip. She’s pretty awesome that way.

The tattoo parlor that Ivy selected was pretty mild for the most part, and if memory serves, it – much like everything else in suburban Arizona – was in a strip mall of some sort. I walked in with only the idea that I wanted flowers, and that I wanted them in the small of my back. After parusing a bunch of highly detailed and mostly unappealing flash, I just decided I would commission my “guy” to draw something up for me. So, in a matter of about 5 minutes he had sketched something that approximated the patented Natalie doodle: a third-grade rendition of a squiggly vine of flowers and leaves. Perfect.

Next thing I knew he was slathering Vaseline all over it and “band-aiding” it with a brown paper towel. That was it. On the pain-o-meter it ranked somewhere between being pinched repeatedly and having my hair pulled (with ‘having my hair pulled falling on the “most painful” end of the spectrum). To celebrate my new debaucherousness, we went out dancing – taking time out every half hour or so to check my new puffy, red, glistening body art in the bathroom mirror.

Happy Birthday, Aunt Tess! May you never lose your sense of adventure!

Tattoo Hall of Shame:

Natalie

Celene

Steve

…and our newest inductee:

Tess