Do I mind it when clients become friends? No, not really. Most of the clients that we have become friends are wonderful people. I wouldn’t trade their friendship for the world. However, it’s the clients that try to take things further than friendship that bother me.  Thankfully, this has only happened three times in the past 21 years. Oh yah, I remember each of them very well!

The first time, the girl didn’t even live in Illinois. She met Augie at some tattoo shows before I began dating him. He did tell me about her, but in typical guy fashion….Yah, she’s got this thing for me, but trust me honey, she’s not my type. Cough cough…bullshit…cough cough! I immediately began to create my own image of this young lady in my little brain…a tall blonde size 0 with gynormous boobs.  A Pam Anderson type (1990’s Pam, of course), if you will.

There before me stood this chick that looks like she received make up advice and style tips from the Cure. He was right! There’s no way in hell she was his type.  This chick was in black from her hair all the way down to the fishnet stockings that disappeared into her Doc Martin boots; I do have to say, the school girl plaid mini-skirt added a nice touch. It gave me flashbacks to my old St. Margaret Mary uniform skirt except this one was shrunken to fit a toy poodle.

Remember the saying….if looks could kill, I’d be dead? Well, once Augie introduced me to her, serrated daggers darted from her eyes straight into my skull. I should be dead.  Thankfully, she got pissed off and left. Well, left where we were standing anyway. She continued to circle around us like a shark eyeing up his prey. I was grateful when we finally headed home.

A short time later, letters from her started appearing in the studio mailbox. First it was twice a month, then once a week. Each and every letter was her professing her love for him and how I’m a “harlot.” Harlot? I wear too many layers of clothes to be a harlot, sweetie. Before long, the letters came daily. The letters eventually stopped and we never heard from her again. I guess she found a new guy to obsess about, oh well.

The second time came in the form of a couple; a husband and wife. They came in for tattoos on a regular basis, which is common. I don’t have a problem with that; some people actually become addicted to tattoos and will be in all the time. Hell, I was one of those people. But things began to change when they started to “hang out” without getting tattooed or pierced.

On several occasions, Augie had to ask them to leave. That opened the flood gates, let me tell you. They began showing up with food for the guys as an excuse to come up all the time. The guys loved it of course….free food. Augie became blinded by the cream puffs, beef sandwiches, pizza and gobs of other goodies they would bring up to them. The way to a man’s heart is his stomach, like Grandma always said, I suppose.

The dynamic duo took it up a notch. They got a hold of our home number and began to call me. I put the kibosh on that faster than the flap of a humming bird’s wing. They did stop calling, but now they turned to the internet. The email I opened from the husband went something like this: I’ve been getting into photography lately and since you’re an artist like me, I would like your opinion on them. They're real avant garde. There were pictures in there alright, but  I wouldn't call them avant garde by any means.

The pictures were of his wife posed over logs, rocks and even in front of a waterfall buck ass naked. The shots were in black and white (maybe that's what he meant by avant garde). I felt compelled to write back. I don’t remember the exact words I wrote to him, but it basically came down to…You asshole creep! Stay away from me, my husband and the studio or I will be calling the cops on your dumb ass.  Guess what? We haven’t heard or seen them since.

The last one (and I hope it stays the LAST one) kind of crept up on us. It was a young lady pining for Augie. What started out as innocent flirting quickly turned into a crazy time. In the beginning, she would go out of her way to do things for us like help with the cleaning, getting them food (yah, I know, that should’ve been my first clue) and talking with customers. She really was a sweet kid, so I thought.

She began to show up at various places he was at like the gas station, a grocery store, the pharmacy. He even saw her in the rearview mirror on his way to work a few times. This girl even showed up at Home Depot when we were with our kids. Mind you, we live 45 minutes from the studio and so does she. It was unsettling.

Thankfully, Augie was able to end the situation before it progressed any further. She moved on and hasn’t been back since. I’m glad this and the other situations ended well. And I hope to never experience anything like it again....I’m getting too old for this shit!