Be honest…..have you ever been behind someone in line, say at Target and the person in front of you is covered in tattoos/piercings and your first thought of this person was not all that nice? What’s my answer? Of course I have. I draw my own conclusions of people based upon first impressions all the time. We all do that. It’s okay though; our thoughts are our thoughts. It’s what we do with those thoughts that matters.

Discrimination and stereotypes in the tattoo and body piercing world is as old as the industry itself. People with body art can conjure up images of bikers, addicts, hoodlums and all other kinds folk that you may not want to bring home to mamma. And when you see someone who has multiple eyebrow piercings, studs in their tongues and cheeks or subdermal implants, don’t you automatically think, what the hell is wrong with you? That’s how I used to think.

Before meeting Augie, I was that person who stereotyped anyone with a tattoo. I automatically assumed that they were questionable people. Tattoos=rebellious behavior, right? That’s what I saw on TV. Take Ozzy Osbourne, for example. We all know about his past….addiction, arrests, and so on. I’d watch his videos on MTV as a kid and just stare at his tattoos. I thought they were so cool, but he wasn’t someone I’d want to hang around. He conveyed the stereotype.

Even the night I met Augie, I was terrified, yet intrigued. I was 18 at the time and my friends brought me up to what was Doc Finn’s at the time. One of them could get a tattoo. The whole ride there, my stomach did flip flops. I was crazy nervous. I was convinced that the entire place was going to be full ex-cons, bikers and basically every stereotypical scary person you can imagine. It didn’t help that on the way there we had to pass the state mental hospital that housed many individuals deemed criminally insane. Not a good sign.

When we got there, I was too chicken to go in first. I made one of my friends go in front of me. Who am I kidding….I made them both go in front of me. I figured that if I was at the end of the line, I could make a quicker get away if it was necessary. See, I was a shy wallflower kind of person. I liked to stay in my glass house where I can look out, but no one can enter. It also doesn’t help that I possess an overactive imagination that causes me to conjure up amplified images of scenarios that couldn’t possibly happen.

To be honest, the first time I saw him, he did scare me. His first impression was not the best. He was sitting there bent over, tattooing a young man. He had these black MC Hammer pants on (you know the kind….crotch down to the knees) that were adorned with multiple rainbows than tucked into his high top gym shoes.

The shirt, I had assumed, was one he chose with the lights off in his bedroom. It was an unusual shade of olive green, but not quite the color of the lightest shade of camouflage that had this black writing indicative of what you’d find on a cargo crate. To complete his ensemble was a pair of tinted aviator glasses that he peered over as he worked. Not once did I think….hey, I’m gonna marry this guy some day!!!

It wasn’t until I formally met him on our way out that I saw how big he was as well. He is 6’3” and I’m 5’2” on a good day. He towered over me. My imagination swirled again with a tornado of thoughts….I wonder if he’s ever been to prison and I bet he owns a Harley. Those thoughts were shattered like a hammer to my glass house when he spoke. He was so kind, polite and quite the gentleman; not a hoodlum or biker dude I had fabricated in my head. My narrow mind began to open.

As I got to know both him and Doc, my preconceived notions of tattooed people continued to fade away. They weren’t bad guys. Doc was a husband with four great kids and Augie was a 22 year old teddy bear. It didn’t take long to be smitten with him. He was a genuinely nice guy that happened to be tattooed and pierced. The stereotypes were gone. Well, at least in my mind.

My parents were not thrilled when I told them I was dating a tattoo artist. They had it in their heads that people with tattoos are addicts and abusers. My mom was convinced that this guy was going to get me strung out and beat me. She thought I was ruining my life. I tried for months to convince her otherwise with no luck.

When things between Augie and I were getting serious, we decided it was time that he met my parents. My mom made it clear that she would meet him, but I was not to plan on her accepting him. She was still convinced he was an all-around bad guy based on his occupation. That all changed when Augie arrived at the house.

When he came in, my parents were already in the foyer, staring him down with a look of don’t f**k with me or my kid. I could tell Augie was shaking in his boots. Poor guy! He was so nervous to begin with and then to come in the house and my parents are standing there, ready to pounce, I’m surprised he stayed.

I noticed that his hand was behind him as he entered. He gave me a kiss and handed me a peach rose from behind his back. Awe…see mom….he’s sweet! He turned to my dad and shook his hand before turning to my mom, still with one hand behind his back, to make her acquaintance. As he shook her hand, he brought his other hand around and presented her with a bouquet of peach roses. Remember that stern look she gave him when he arrived? Gone! Her heart melted and has remained melted even after all these years.

The moral to this story is……don’t judge a book by its cover. Sure, there will always be those out there that cast a bad light on anything that’s stereotyped, but you have to look past that. So I dare you….go out and strike up a conversation with someone that has a bah-zillion tattoos or has piercings in their face and their ear lobes stretched out down to their chins. I bet you will forget what’s on them and like what’s in them instead.

From the time our daughters were able to say the word tattoo, they have bugged their dad to give them one. They didn’t want to hear that it was against the law for them to get tattoos before they were 18 years old. They figured that since their dad did them and both of us had some, they should be automatically exempt. And waiting to turn 18 for a three year old and a six year old was a feat most 16 and 17 year olds can’t even endure. So, we came up with the next best thing….Sharpie markers. I went out and bought every color Sharpie had to offer. 

He sat his girls down and told them that they were finally going to be able to get the tattoos they’ve always wanted their whole, entire lives. They were beside themselves with excitement. “But it’s going to hurt. Mommy said it hurts,” said my little peanut, Gia.

He explained that I had gone out and bought special Little-Girl-No-Hurt-Tattoo-Makers so they could have tattoos of their very own AND it wasn’t against the law. Their eyes bulged as they squealed with joy, as only little girls can. Our oldest, Sofia, took off running upstairs only to reappear moments later with a notebook. “I have been waiting for this my whole life!” she announced. She handed over the notebook to her daddy. Inside, she had sketched a design of what her future tattoo would look like….a skull with an exotic flower on its head.  It was perfect.

He set up a make-shift tattoo studio in the dining room and asked for his first customer. Sofia hopped right up on the chair and lifted her shirt sleeve. She had the placement thought out and everything. He got to work.

After about ten minutes and artist/client chit chat, her first tattoo was finished. She jumped down and ran to the mirror to check out that bad ass skull on her arm. She was thrilled! She ran back and gave him a hug. That was his tip. She then took off upstairs to put on a tank top so when she rode her bike outside, people would see it and command respect. Now it was Gia’s turn.

She climbed into daddy’s tattoo chair with a bit more hesitation than her older sister. She’s not a skull kind of girl and had yet to be convinced that it wasn’t going to hurt. Put it this way, when she was barely two years old, she had one of those lick‘em-stick’em tattoos ,like the kind you get out of a gumball machine, of a lady bug she freaked out. She liked the ladybug when it was still on the paper, but once it was on her skin, she cried. She was convinced that it was going to bite her. So, for her to want a tattoo was a big deal.

She decided on a smiley face; something not scary. He drew the happiest face with curly blonde hair just like hers. She was so excited with how it looked and that there was no pain whatsoever that she decided that she wanted another one. Before long, she was covered on her forearms, back and legs with flowers, birds, a sun and Minnie Mouse. Then, to all of our amazement, she asked daddy for a skull.

“Are you sure?” asked daddy. “It will take a lot of baths to get it off.” She didn’t care. She wanted a skull. Being the awesome daddy that he is, he drew it on a piece of paper first before putting it on her. He wanted her to approve it before he put it on her. She loved it. It was a skull and crossbones, like the Jolly Roger, except all done in pink. Pink makes everything less scary, you know.

She didn’t let me watch. I was banished to the other room while she got her pink skull and crossbones. After about a ten minute wait, she came into the kitchen to show me. There it was, right on her bicep, a pink skull and crossbones. Underneath it, he added something a special…..MOM. My three year old was officially a badass little chickie.

And that was the start of Daddy’s Tattoo Shop. It was a good run, but after a few years, he had to close the doors. The two lovely clients he had all these years had moved on; they were getting older. They no longer wanted to be tattooed by the special Little-Girl-No-Hurt-Tattoo-Makers. Oh well. But they still have to wait until their 18 to get real ones.

I get asked quite a lot, especially from women, wanting to know how I can tolerate Augie touching women’s boobs and hoo-ha’s all day long? Don’t you get jealous when he has to touch all those naked women? The answer is quite easy….no, I don’t. And trust me, there have been plenty times where I should’ve unleashed the green eyed monster and taken down some un-lady-like-ladies, but what’s the point? It comes down to trust and I trust him.

I’ll give you an example….I swung by the shop one afternoon on my way home one day, just to say hi. When I came in, I saw that his office door was shut. No big deal. That just meant that he was tattooing or piercing someone in an area not often seen by strangers, if you catch my drift. I called out through the door to let him know I was there.

I heard him ask his client if it’s okay if they took a little break so he could say hi to me. A woman’s voice said, “Sure, but hurry back.”  As he came out of the room, I caught a glimpse of a young lady with long blonde hair sitting in the chair, her back to me, without a top on. He closed the door as he leaned in to kiss me.

“No need to shut it sweetie. It’s getting a little hot in here anyway,” she says. She didn’t have to turn around or say anymore for me to know that she was in full flirt mode with him. She was crushing on my man, even though she didn’t know I was his wife at this point. She was staking her claim, I suppose. I do have to admit, I did find it kind of flattering. It’s good for my ego to see that a woman wants my guy. It’s a…. ha ha, he’s mine and not yours…kind of thing.  Oh dear, is my catty-ness showing??

He told me he was almost done and asked if I’d hang out for a bit before heading home. I said sure. When he went back in to the room, she asked him who I was, not knowing I was now sitting at a desk just outside his door. He told her that I was his wife and that I stopped by to say hey. This seemed to flip her flirting switch into high gear. My guess is that she saw it as some kind of challenge. I just saw it as funny.

She pulled out all the stops….you have the most beautiful brown eyes I have ever seen. I could gaze at them for hours. I heard a lot of oh yah’s and that feels good coming out of the room. I almost burst out laughing when she asked him to show her how to apply the ointment to her boob. I’m not sure I’ll do it right. Can you show me how to rub it on? See why I wasn’t jealous? Acts of desperation from any woman doesn’t equal jealousy from me.

I have to give it to her….her acts of foolhardiness didn’t end there. As they came out of the room, she asked him what he was doing after work and proceeded to invite him out for a couple of drinks. He had the biggest grin on his face. You could tell he was flattered by the offer and yet shocked that she asked him while I was right there.

He did point me out to her and reminded her again of who I was. I will never forget what she said after she turned and looked me dead in the eye….”Honey, that don’t matter. I’m not threatened by her.” His eyes went straight to the floor as she handed him her business card followed by “call me.”

I’m sure other women would have jumped from behind the desk and opened a case of whoop-ass on her, but that’s not what I did. I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. That was some funny sh*t I just witnessed. Plus, she seemed to me to be the kind of person that used this M.O. quite often and got the results she wanted. It just wasn’t going to work this time.

Once she was gone, Augie just smiled. You could tell this had just made his day and that’s okay. Guys need that once in a while. They need an ego boost from another woman sometimes. If he’s a good guy, it’ll never go beyond flirting.  And he’s a good guy.

Do I look like someone who owns a tattoo and body piercing studio? I don't think so either, but that's just fine with me. It's actually pretty dang funny to see people's faces when they find out. I get a lot of bug eyes, quizzical speculation and no way's and you?? I look more like a room mom than a tattooed mama.

No, I don't tattoo. I have the artistic talent of two year old. My stick people aren't even proportionate. Trust me, you don't want me drawing anything permanent on you. I don't pierce either. I get queasy with the thought of pushing a rod of steel through a tongue or eyebrow, let alone anything in the neither-region down below. That's why my husband does it. He's the talented one!

He's been tattooing for more than 25 years and piercing for over 20.He has done all of my tattoo's except for two. Those were done by Doc Finn when he was still alive (I miss that guy every day). My favorite one that my husband did is my tiger. It goes from my butt cheek to my knee; a sweet tiger cub in grass and flowers. He drew it up for me and spent 17 hours inking it in. I have to say that after 21 years, it still looks great. I guess it's because I don't tan. I burn and freckle; a lovely combo I must say.

My other favorite one he did was a small daisy on the side of my calf. I got it for Mother's Day 2010. Our oldest daughter, Sofia, had a class project to do where she had to interview someone, film it, edit it and all that. She wanted to do it on her daddy, so he drew the flower with her name and her sister's name around it. It's the only tattoo that I have that has a special meaning to me. All of them have a story or reason behind it, but nothing like my Daughter Daisy. Wonder if I'll be getting another one when Gia, our youngest daughter, takes that class? That would be cool! Wonder what I'll get?

You'd think that since I'm married to a tattoo artist I'd be covered with them. That's not me. I don't want to look like Kat Von D. I never have. That's not my thing. And that's what is so fantastic about tattoos....to each his own. I'm sure it would be different if I was doing tattoos like Kat, but I don't. Like I said, I wasn't born with that creative gene and besides, my tattoos are for me. They hold stories of my personal journey through this life. If I want you to see them, you'll see them. Otherwise, you'll be none the wiser.