Getting Inked

The artist (Johnny 5) never responded to my emails so I didn't know how much the tattoo was going to cost. Apparently the cost of their tattoos vary with your attitude. I thought mine was going to be around $300. It was $120. The bad part was that I also didn't know they didn't take credit cards, so luckily I had Heather there with cold hard cash - and also thankfully, enough to pay for hers and mine.

He started by tracing Jolynn's foot print from her birth record. Then he did the lettering and date. He put it all together on to carbon paper. Then he applied it to my ankle. Many times through out the whole designing phase he was asking me if I was sure this is how I wanted it, do these letters look okay, is this what you had in mind? When he finally had it all together we checked the placement on my ankle. He asked if that was where I wanted it. Everything looked great. I was ready to go - Heather was supposed to be sitting beside me, but ended up getting hers done at the same time. Johnny did a little strip and asked if I was okay. I hardly even felt it! As he went on there were moments I had to remind myself to breath, and Lamaze breathing came in quite handy. I was sweating so bad. A few times he would hit a nerve and my foot would twitch. He was done outlining and moved on to shading. I couldn't believe that I was making it through this without crying! He said I was doing very well. I guess my "attitude" must have been good because I think being it was Vegas and a large custom tattoo, that $120 was very cheap.

We wrapped it up and then waited for a cab. We waited for 45 min before we called the cab company again and they said they had to re-dispatch the driver. When asked how long it would be she hesitated and said maybe 15 min. Don't think so. We called Bill and had him catch a cab from a hotel (much easier than outside of the strip) and pick us up then we rode back to the Flamingo.

And that's my first tattoo, probably not my last!