perm-a-doodle

These are some of the things I hear on a semi-regular basis:

'Oh, somebody went to the club last night!'

'Did you get bored and doodle on yourself?'

'OMG, do you bathe? That thing has been on your arm for a week!'

'Did you get that in prison!?!?'

'You paid for that???'

'No. Really?'

And with great shock (and an unusual amount of rage): 'WHAT THE F**K?!??!'

Unfortunately all of these exclamations aren't in response to some sort of awesome battle scar from a meth-ed out bar fight, a respectably butch wound from a sports related injury, or even a disgusting birth mark. It's in response to my "tattoo." After you see the picture, you'll understand why I used the air-quotes. Only someone with a very low IQ or the worst taste ever would actually call this a tattoo. 


Here it is:

My best friend's sister calls it my 'Perm-A-Doodle.'

Feel instantly better about yourself and your life decisions thus far? You should. Other than getting knocked up by an unemployed, "DJ", with jacked up teeth and credit, I think it is one of the worst permanent thing that can happen to a impressionable young college student.

It was one of best friend's 21st birthdays, but unfortunately the big day fell during my university's spring break. My friend worked and I had a short vacation that year. Being a college town through and through, my friend and I were basically alone.

To help her ring in her special day, we went to a basically empty bar on a street usually bustling with young co-eds just getting their starter-DUIs. We drank a lot and somewhere around last call we decided it would be awesome to get matching tattoos!

This was pre-iPhone, so we actually had to call 4-1-1 for the numbers of any and all tattoo shops that were still open. Turns out, lucky #5 proved the winner open. Red Flag #1 + 2: it was after 2 AM and the "shop" was located on 34th Street and Hepatitis Avenue.

We loaded up our loaded selves into a Honda Element and drove over with dreams of beautiful B.F.F. tattoos! Red Flag #3: Us: "Hi, we want matching tattoos!" Scary looking tattoo shop worker: "I normally only do piercings." Us: "That's OK!"

He reluctantly agreed (probably Red Flag #4) and began to scribble the most pathetic looking peace sign I've ever barely remember seeing. We signed no waivers and proceeded to the back.

She went first. When the piercing guy was done I saw it. (Red Flag #5). It was too late for me though... We had made a drunken pact, her tattoo was done, and she was also my ride home. And, frankly, getting raped and/or offered some very low quality crack in one of the seedier parts of Lubbock, Texas didn't seem like acceptable alternatives.

As we drove home, we convinced each other it was the right thing to do. "Oh, I kind of like that it is imperfect. I mean no peace isn't perfect." I was a philosophy major at the time, and it felt like the perfect intellectual bulls**t to console a forever scarred idiot.

Nowadays, I hardly notice it until someone asks me if I get bored a lot and draw on myself. But I kind of like it, because it reminds me of my dear friend, and it is a constant reminder not to do something stupid like sign up to do a mud-run, turn down any venue that offers any sort of 'all-you-can-eat' or leave home without my phone.  

To be filed under things my tattoo reminder has NOT stopped me from doing: texting after 2 AM and/or 2 bottles of wine, continuously watching all three of the Transformers films (or any other film by Michael Bay for that matter), emotionally substituting take-out Pei Wei and hoarded Girl Scout cookies for a Friday night social life or boyfriend, and listening to that 'Call Me Maybe' song.

PS - My friend is working on starting her second successful business and just married a great guy. The most exciting or 'successful' thing I have done of late is see the Avengers. She must take this stupid reminder a lot more seriously than me...

good luck, errebody else!

So, I had a first this past Monday: my first car wreck.

I was within 100 yards of my apartment building and was hit by a silver Corvette. This offended me on so many levels. Fortunately, it was the other driver’s fault, and he was nice, apologetic, and surprisingly not wearing a single article of Ed Hardy clothing.

Contrary to the belief/mostly true reality that most Asians drive like this:

I’m actually an impeccable driver. I have zero violations on my record, and as previously stated, have never been involved in an accident… unless you count barfing Red Bull vodkas out the passenger side of a Jeep Grand Cherokee while being driven home, then I retract that last statement.

So, my car’s a pretty big deal. It’s a 2001 Toyota Camry. It was my mom’s, and I still remember the day my parents brought it home. It was the first brand new car my family had ever owned, and it had power windows and keyless entry! I felt like the pretty Kardashian sister!

At fifteen, I felt like a real bad ass. When my parents were out of town, I would be out on the town driving between the two Sonics, aggressively jamming to Jessica Simpson’s “Irresistible”, and chain-smoking Kamel Red Lights with my girlfriends (meaning “HAAAY GIIIIRLFRIEND!”, not “let’s drink a 6-pack of Zima and explore each others' bodies” kind of girlfriend… just in case my listening to Jessica Simpson didn't already make that perfectly clear).

Little did I know, a decade and almost 180,000 miles later, I would still be doing this. As you can imagine, it is slightly less bad ass nowadays.

However, there are some HUGE benefits to driving a crappy car in a town like Dallas.

1)    I hate driving around the city. One way streets, slow-moving ethnic pedestrians, and the iPhone’s Maps app that is always out to get me face-raped in shady parts of town. But when you drive a vehicle that is basically being held together by dust and my nightly prayers, no one wants to take your car anywhere. EVER. Advantage: John.

2)    The few times I venture out in my car to meet friends for dinner, day drinking, or a good knitting marathon, inevitably there is always a “valet only” situation. Words cannot express how much I hate valet only establishments. But, when this happens, I like to think I’m giving the kind car runners a mild self-esteem boost. Instead of the usual black BMW 3 series or other typical fancy "status" car like a Kia Sorento, they get to judge me and the awesomeness of my 4-cylinder import. They’re all like, ‘I may park cars for meth money, but this car has one axle in the grave.’

3)    I usually almost always have the right of way. Not because I actually have it or know exactly what that means for that matter, but when you see a car with a dent or scratch of some kind on almost every panel, you assume they do NOT have insurance and usually avoid swapping paint with such a car. I should just slap a Piolín sticker on the bumper and really just lean into it.

This might be slightly racist, but if you've seen some of the rides
that sport this, you would agree they are not 'in good hands.'

4)    Also, being older and having its share of wear and tear, I don’t care (mainly because I don’t notice) if there is a door ding here or, you know, a missing panel there. Literally, the moment the car hit me, my first thought was about the eggs in my grocery sack in the back seat. For the record, three of them were broken. FML.

5)  Finally, have no car payment is the BEST thing of ever. So...

And, when you drive around in a car with a dent on the trunk where your mom backed into a tree branch, but looks like someone went Tonya Harding on, this sort of thing is really a non-event.

At least now most of the panels match.

PS - If you are reading this and are wealthy and don't want any sort of weird sex stuff in return, please buy me a new car or an ice cream attachment for my Kitchen-Aid mixer.

PPS - Let's be real, the weird sex stuff clause might be rescinded for the ice cream attachment alone!

Do want.