I got my tattoo for Wu today. I ended up going to Fatty’s Custom Tattooz in Dupont Circle, where I was quoted a price of $200 and told the wait was about an hour. That seemed like an awful lot of money, but I remembered the advice of those who told me “quality work costs more” and I handed over my card. The entire shop was really warm - it was at least 75° out, and the air conditioning obviously hadn’t been turned on yet from winter - so I went downstairs to Starbucks and got us cold drinks. I had been nervous as we neared the shop, I was nervous as I searched for parking, I was nervous walking back to the shop…I was definitely scared, and sitting around for an hour just got me more worked up! I talked with crayon on my Sidekick; she has a number of tattoos and told me that she’s been scared before every one.

Finally at 4:30 or so, my artist came out back from working on her previous client. Her name was Lea but she didn’t introduce herself, she just told us she was going to have a cigarette and would be right back. It turned out she also needed to eat, so she ate while drawing up my tattoo. It turned out the shop didn’t have any cat paw flash, so I pulled up some graphics on my Sidekick and showed them to her. She worked from that and came up with something that was a little too big, so I had her size it down and then she took me back to the room where I would be tattooed. I was a little nervous that someone else was also getting a tattoo in the same room, and I was annoyed when I asked about a chair for A, was told they didn’t have any more, and then saw a chair being brought in for the teenage buddy of the other guy who was in the room with me. I guess teenage boys just don’t give chairs to ladies anymore.

As Lea was putting the needles together, I suddenly remembered that I am Girl Who Passes Out When Having Blood Drawn. I wanted to be there, though, and have it done, so I stuck through it. The sound when she turned it on didn’t bother me, I’m pretty sure my eyes opened very wide when the needle first touched me. I immediately grabbed A’s hand and clutched it tightly; I was sure I was crushing her hand but she later told me it wasn’t that bad. I also drank up her entire bottle of water, and after a few minutes when I broke into my usual needle-phobic cold sweat I had her step closer so I could lean against her. (I was sitting in an office chair facing sideways, and she was standing behind the chair.) I was concentrating so hard on holding my left leg still that my right leg was jiggling uncontrollably, but after a few minutes the pain started to lessen and I was able to relax a bit.

Just as I started getting used to it, Lea announced that she was done - A says I was only under the needle for 10 or 15 minutes. I was still in quite a bit of shock and couldn’t really tell what was going on, but A said it looked good. I went back out to the waiting area and got my care sheet, and sat there in a daze and drank more water. When Lea came out, A asked her if that was really a $200 tattoo - it had taken about 45 minutes from when she first said hello to us to when I was back on the couch out front. She checked with whoever was responsible for giving quotes (Fatty himself was apparently off this weekend) and came back and said it could be brought down to $150 because it wasn’t as big as they had been expecting. A and I still felt it was vastly overpriced, but according to her we are very happy with the way it came out. I was loopy most of the way home but I am feeling better now, and I’m looking forward to taking off the bandage and washing it and getting a good look.