A young man comes in and is asking questions about his first tattoo. I'm explaining everything to him about the procedure. He seems very interested, even though he has no plans to do it that day. I hand him my card, and he thanks me. Then he asks, "Oh....if I get the tattoo, do I have to pay for it that day?"
These are the moments I wish I could say what I was thinking. Something along the lines of, "When you eat in a restaurant, do they let you come back and pay for it a week later?" Jumpin' jupiter. A lot of the questions people ask seem silly to us, only because we're used to doing tattoos all day. I try to keep that in mind, as the questions might seem silly to us, but to someone who knows nothing about tattoos, they make perfect sense. But when people are asking questions that have no connection to any rational logic whatsoever, it is so hard to keep my mouth shut and be polite. This is why I have ulcers. I'm reading a site right now called Not Always Right, and I'm over here laughing my ass off. Tattooing is actually part of the service industry, so aside from the unique problems we deal with that are specific to tattoos, we also have the headaches that are typical of restaurants, bars, retail, hospitals, et cetera. I've run across a few tattoo-related stories on there, I'm about to send them some of my own....