Just TeeJay's Blog

Clients will often express the fear to us that we are going to make fun of them after they leave.

All of us (well everyone I know anyhow) has these kind of fears in their head and I greatly appreciate clients being willing to express them. In an effort to help these clients understand that they are NOT extraordinary I would like to begin to highlight some of the problem customers that we have encountered.

Some of the people who DO get talked about later.

For the purposes of my first story in this vein I will protect the identity of the artist involved. We will call him Sam. (You all know how much I like assigning random names to people in these stories) The client has no need of having his identity protected, but I will call him Slug since filthy horrible inconsiderate turd would be too long to write out each time.

Sam has booked an appointment with Slug and has spent a couple of days cleaning up and perfecting his drawings. It is a decent size piece and it goes from his knee to ankle. I actually can’t remember what the image was of. Sam is happy with the drawing and also is counting on the money from this tattoo to finish coming up with this months rent.

Slug strolls in late. He makes some small talk with Sam and then says to him “What do you think of this?” rolls up his pantleg and shows Sam the same tattoo that he has asked Sam to draw. Drawn and tattooed already on his other leg (recently, probably the day before as it is still fresh).

Sam is confused (as we all would be). “You got the tattoo done already?” Yes. “So you don’t want to do this?” confusion on his face, but all the rest of us know that he is disappointed as well. Both because he was actually excited about the drawing and that Sam needs the money.

“No, I still want you to do it.”

What? Are you serious? Why? You already have it done on the other leg. “I’m going to have you do it too and then whichever one turns out better, I’ll have the other one covered up.”

Now at this point there were a lot of options. He could have told Slug he was an idiot and send him out of the shop. He could have explained to Slug that it’s not that easy to cover up a tattoo that runs from knee to ankle. He could have just ignored the idiot warning signs and tattooed the guy anyhow. In the end this is what he decided to do. Figuring that he could do the tattoo, get a nice photo for his portfolio and no one would know that the client had the same tattoo done twice. (Plus he needed the money) Beyond that there was some pride involved as well that he wanted the tattoo that he made to be so much better than the one that they guy was wearing that Slug would realize what an idiot he was for going to the other shop.

So Sam puts Slug in the chair – raises him up nice and high and props his leg up to a convenient working height. Slug smells like you would expect someone that we are calling Slug to smell – so Sam insists that he leave his shoe on.

The tattoo progresses along quickly – about mid afternoon Slug sneezes. Why is this noteworthy? Because Sam has really short buzz cut sort of hair (you might say he was losing his hair – but I won’t). Sam sneezes and hurls a huge loogey onto the top of Sam’s head.

Yes Really.

Sam has to unglove and wipe the snot glob off the top of his head. He excuses himself to go to the restroom to wash his head and regain his composure. We all know Sam is thinking about gutting Slug. Eventually Sam comes back and returns to work. Slug says nothing. Doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t look guilty. Nothing. Just sits there in his festering glory.

I want to punch the guy.

Sam tries to maintain his composure and finish the tattoo. It gets to be the time that I need to leave for the day. Next day I ask Sam how the tattoo came out.

Sam is livid. Even the next day in retelling this story he is furious. Apparently after they had finished the tattoo Slug got up – opened his wallet – feigned surprise and went “Oh, wow, I don’t have any money…” or some sort of crap along those lines. Wallet was completely devoid of cash – not even a couple of crumpled singles.

Sam snagged the wallet out of Slug’s hands, locked the doors and explained to Slug about Theft of Service and how if he actually survived this situation the cops could be called to arrest what was left of him.

A conversation followed which we leave up to the readers imagination. Slug started making some phone calls and Sam got his money.

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So are we going to make fun of you after you leave? Probably not. If you are the sort of person who worries that you might get made fun of – than you probably aren’t very likely to act like the kind of person we talk about later.

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and remember boys and girls

You Can’t Make This Shit Up

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As you have probably noticed…. the image at the top is not a slug and has nothing to do with the story. I did try looking for pictures of a slimey gooey slug with slime trailing behind it…. but made myself nauseous on the google search. So you will have to imagine your own festering pile of gross.

~ by justteejay on January 28, 2011.

Posted in tattoo, White Tiger Tattoo, You Can't Make This Shit Up
Tags: client, sneeze, tattoo