Photo: Emily Blackwood
Sorry, mom.
By Emily Blackwood — Written on Apr 25, 2016
It started out as a harmless idea.
Ink Hunter found its way onto my phone Wednesday, after learning how the freebie lets you test out a tattoo (one of their sketches or your own) before making too much of a commitment. And as a frequent backer-outer of anything that permanent, this was something I could get behind.
Images swarmed in my brain of getting a big "L" on my forehead or "I heart Chipotle" on my protruding gut to send to my mom for her daily freak-out, but then my editorial director decided to take it a step further. Why not get a realistic tattoo, put photo up on Facebook and see if anyone thinks it's real?
I mean, WHY NOT.
Sadly, the app doesn't have a whole lot of options when it comes to their own sketches, and I'm not tech-savvy enough to figure out how to make my own.
So I settled on a pretty floral pattern in a spot that I could easily photograph by balancing my phone on my dresser. As always, I took at least 40 photos before getting one that I liked.
Before posting it online, I really, really wanted to scare my mom (it's one of my favorite hobbies), and sent her the following photo — to which she did not respond to.
After several texts filled with question marks, I finally called her and asked if she had seen my messages. She had been on the phone with one of my many talkative aunts, and had not. I told her it was imperative that she looked.
She did, and said: "Oh, nice henna."
Disappointed in my failed efforts to get her to think I was finally rebelling at age 23, I recruited her help in taking a better photo. She also suggested I created a better tattoo. Her ideas included a mandala on my nipple or a hand print on my left butt cheek. Thank God she never had the urge to get tatted.
She also suggested I got an infinity symbol on my wrist, which I told her was too basic white girl.
"But that's you," she said. Savage.
We finally landed on a harmless jellyfish, and the following photo was posted to Facebook last night:
Now let me start off by saying that never in a million years did I think anyone would believe me.
I'm a total baby when it comes to anything slightly dangerous and cool, and most people learn that about me very quickly. But at this current moment in time, my picture has 143 likes, 16 comments, and I'm seriously considering making a quick stop to a local tattoo store (or whatever you people call it).
Pretty much everyone approved, and said it was "super cute." My editor thought it would be fun to ask me what the meaning behind the jellyfish was. To which I responded, "Well I've always been super connected to jellyfish, they're like my spirit animal. Cool and complex, but if you get too close I'll sting the shit out of you ;)." And that it's self, got eight likes.
A couple family members were onto to me, reminding me of my fear of needles and flat out saying "is this even real?" One of my friends asked me who did the tat, and when I said it was "a nice guy named Henry who I met in a back alley," she responded with some comforting curse words.
While I'm slightly dreading telling everyone that my back remains untatted, it was nice to live in a world where people thought I was cooler than I really was. But sadly, I am not the girl who gets spontaneous tattoos. I'm the adult girl who cried in Claire's because she didn't want to get her ears pierced.
Needless to say, no one will ever trust a word I say on Facebook again. But whatever, I have:
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