I am so excited to feature the very talented D.C. McMillen here on Tattoo Tuesday. She has a great tattoo story and she has her mother to blame thank.
My Mom Talked Me into My First Tattoo
It was about 2am when I walked into a 24 hour convenience store. I was a scantily clad 19 year old who had spent the evening in the club district. He was a very large, young Asian man covered in tattoos, who worked behind the counter. We chatted about stuff I can’t remember, with the exception that his uncle owned the store and needed him to cover a shift, and then he asked if I was free the following evening. I told him I had plans to get my belly button pierced and if he would like to come along, I knew of a great little dive bar just around the corner.
For a man covered in large, detailed tats, his face flushed to a shocking shade of pink when he watched the needle pierce my skin. I laughed at his reaction and we went for dinner and drinks and then a party at my friend’s house.
My mother was, well, grossed out at my belly button ring. I told her I planned to go back to get another piercing the next week and she begged me to reconsider. I wasn’t surprised by my mom’s reaction. She had always had a weird thing about piercings. She did not work up the courage to pierce her own ears until she had reached her twenties and when I got my ears pierced at age eleven she could not even watch. She did go with me to the salon, though, and sat on a bench outside eating ice cream (her ultimate comfort food) while I went to my appointment. When I pierced another set of holes in my ears a year later with a needle and ice cubes, she almost passed out.
What did surprise me, however, was my mother’s suggestion that I get a tattoo instead of another body piercing.
“You want me to get a tattoo?” I asked.
“Why not? You’re creative, artistic and you have a great body. You can come up with something funky and oh so you. Put one pretty much anywhere and it will look good on you, sweetie.”
“Um…”
“Trust me. If you want one, do it now while you’re young. When you’re old you’ll spend your time regretting the shit you didn’t do, not the shit you did do.”
She had a point, even if she was contradicting herself by trying to talk me out of the piercing.
I had been designing tattoos since I was sixteen, selling the designs to a couple of tattoo artist friends, and had always planned to get one or two tattoos of my own one day. My mother’s unsolicited advice is what made me finally take the plunge. I did not use one of my own designs for that first tattoo, though, nor did I go to one of my friends to get inked. Despite the fact that my artwork had sold to more than a few buyers and a couple of paintings even hung in office buildings in downtown Toronto, I never felt confident in my work. I was not about to trust my body to a tattoo artist who was so artistically impaired that he liked my art. Instead I walked into a highly regarded tattoo shop on Queen Street and picked an image off the wall.
I did not bring the hot Asian guy with me this time; I went alone, which worked out in my favour because the artist who inked me turned out to be an even hotter, larger Asian guy with even more awesome tattoos. What luck! 😉
The tattoo I chose was a large tribal style frog on my shoulder blade. Many days in my early childhood were spent catching and releasing frogs. When I moved to the city I began collecting toy frogs, figurines, frog carvings, etc. to remind me of home. I still have much of the collection.
I proudly showed my mom my new tat. It was a little larger than she expected but she liked it.
“See? Aren’t you glad you got that out of your system now while you’re young?” my mom asked.
“Actually, I made an appointment to get another tattoo next month,” I answered.
My mother rolled her eyes and grumbled that at least I wasn’t putting another hole through my body.
D.C. McMillen, bio
D.C. McMillen lives in Toronto, Canada. She enjoys writing about dirty sex in questionable places but has been known to write about other subjects, on special occasions.
D.C. is featured in MuseItHot’s Short & Spicy line up with The Rental and the upcoming story A Decent December. Her debut novella, The Rusty Nail, was recently published through Rebel Ink Press, and she is published in several print and e-book anthologies.
D.C. is obsessed with Twitter and invites you to look her up at @mcmillendc, on her blog, or on Facebook, where she goes sometimes.
If you would like to be featured on Tattoo Tuesday, send me your tattoo story.
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