Getting A Tattoo (When Your Mammy And Daddy Said Not To)
I don't mean to brag ladies and get all of you hot and bothered, but as the title suggests, I didn't do as my parents told me. That's not all, though. Sometimes I eat chocolate before my dinner and one time I jaywalked when no one was around. If you like bad boys, then look no further than me.
Anyway, this article is not about how cool I am, I'm saving that for next week. This article is about how we are all major disappointments to our parents. Yes true, our parents are also proud of us at times, but we do plenty to be seen as failures in their eyes. You don't have to feel too bad, this is just one of those things, a right of passage as such. We'll be ashamed of our offspring when our daughters and sons decide to break our hearts in thirty years or so by becoming nudists or having a second nose surgically attached to their left nipple or something.
My most recent reason for being a disappointment to my parents is my tattoo. I got it three years ago and they found out two months ago. Needless to say, this worked in my favour when the yelling started. After all, it's harder to be angry at someone for a decision they made years ago and you failed to notice. So they went for the whole "You should have just been honest and told us and not hid it!" angle.
I don't really advertise my tattoo to begin with, it's a personal thing, not a vanity thing. If people find out, people find out and my parents aren't an exception. Yes, I get the irony of that comment as I'm currently writing an article about my tattoo, but I've got to write about something. Not sure my parents really believed me, because they proceed to list off my friends to find out how many people knew. At that point I think they were just trying to get something juicy so they could give out to me some more. They started by asking if my girlfriend knew, which seemed like a dumb question. It also left me in the awkward position of having to say "yes, because as you may recall we are two sexually active adults and oh this is so horrible awkward so thanks for that". Thinking back on that now, perhaps my parents did that to torture me in revenge for getting a tattoo.
Frankly, I'm still a little surprised about how shocked and angry they acted. I know they never wanted me to get inked, but it was a long time coming. I'd made it clear I wanted one since I was about seven and if I think about it, they encouraged me. They got me those stick on tattoo's when I was as a kid. Some might say they acted as enablers.
Even though their reaction to this news was to scream and shout and let it all out (see what I did there?), things moved on quick enough. Maybe it's based on the fact that I'm stuck with it so they'd better just get used to it, or that it's on my ribcage and not on my face, but after the initial anger was gone, things moved on quick enough. My Mam even makes jokes about it now and again.
Either way, my parents can rest easy for now because it'll be a while before I get another ink job. I'm overly fussy about my designs, and I'm still trying to design my next tattoo. I've only been at it two years and gone through thirty options. Some people like tattoo's because they're 'cool', but I fall into the category of having a tattoo because it has some sort of deep and personal meaning. #deep
What's important to know is that if you have parents like mine, you will always break their heart each time you get a tattoo. There's no way around it. No matter where or when you get it, you can't avoid their disappointment. They're your parents, they pass comment about everything you do (that they know about *wink, wink). But you're a grown up now and shit's going to happen. So accept the earful that's coming no matter what and get your masterpiece carved into your rather bland skin already.
