Tattoo #6

I’ve wanted a Friday the 13th tattoo for so long and now I’m at a place where I can finally get one!

For those of you know don’t know, on Friday the 13th, a lot of tattoo shops offer “flash” tattoos for $13 plus the usual $7, paying an even $20 for a small piece. “Flash” tattoos are pre-designed, quite small and usually simple. There are about 20 to choose from and each shop has its own rules about modifications to the design and placement (which I will get to later).

I tried to do some research ahead of time at the designs available at different shops in Tucson to choose the ones I like best, but had no luck finding the designs on the Web ahead of time. I wanted to shop around beforehand because Tucson is quite big and the lines on Friday the 13th can be long so I didn’t want to be running around all day. But after asking for recommendations on Facebook, my friend suggested a place I was already interested in, so I decided to take my chances and head down there.

I got to Sacred Art tattoo about an hour before they opened, but nobody was in the queue yet, so I got some cash out and read in my car for a little bit. Once they opened, a flood of people came in behind me, at least a dozen people crammed into the small lobby. I was the first one in the queue for tattoos (they were also offering piercing specials) and my name was called while I was still looking at the designs, so I went with my gut.

There were a few dozen different designs that caught my eye, but they weren’t offering color (some shops on Friday the 13th offer color at an additional price) or size changes as far as I was aware. I was between a Roman numeral XIII and a fish and my deciding factor was the size. I knew I wanted the tattoo on the outside of my leg and the XIII seemed a bit too big, so I opted for the fishy.

The process was extremely quick, I didn’t even catch my tattooer’s name. He prepped the design, sterilized the work station and made sure I was comfortable before placing the purple outline above the outside of my left ankle. The tattoo itself took literally two minutes and wasn’t particularly painful, but it didn’t feel good either. When it was finished, he wiped it clean, wrapped the tattoo and sent me on my way after the standard $20 was paid. For size reference, the fish is about an inch long!

I treated myself to lunch at Baggins, a really tasty local sandwich chain I’ve been craving for a while now!

All in all, it was pretty fun, but maybe next time I’ll go to a shop that offers color pieces and go with a friend. I really like my tattoo and feel it’s quite suiting in my current career as a glorified fish counter/mutilator.

Do you have any tattoos?