OPPOSITES ATTRACT

When we met, it’s fair to say that it was a case of opposites attracting. Mike’s a guy who’s into heavy metal music, loves tattoos, big trucks, and meat and potatoes. I’m a vegetarian, I like to attend Folk Fest, farmers markets, and I enjoy reading and crafting.

As far as tattoos go, I had a couple when I met Mike but they were 20 years old. One of them was on my back, a little frog, something I couldn’t see, so I never even thought about it. I thought perhaps one day I would get a tattoo with the dates of my children’s births as they are unique, but I never did.

02/08/2008

10/20/2010

When we met, Mike spoke about loving “Ink” all over a woman. I knew that would never be me, but I wasn’t closed off to the idea of adding a little more than I had. As I mentioned, I had a frog on my back that I couldn’t see. Maybe if I could, I would have done something about it sooner, but one day the girls told me it looked like I had a piece of gum stuck on my back. The small frog had, over the years, just turned into a blob. No one wants a blob on their back.

I suppose covering up that frog is where it all began. I started to plan what I wanted as a cover-up, and at the same time, I could see the yearning in my husband‘s eyes to add more ink to himself.

For someone who’s had multiple broken bones, and two babies with no drugs, I cannot tolerate the needle pain. To me, getting a tattoo is voluntarily putting yourself through pain. I don’t like it, and I want it over fast. My husband on the other hand loves sitting through the attack of the needle. For him, there’s pleasure in it. It's weird.

It had been ages, as I said since I had a tattoo, so I’d forgotten what it felt like when I first sat in the chair. Now each body part is unique to the pain that you will endure when you sit through a tattoo but I have to say on the spine was not my favourite. But I am happy with the results of my Tree of life.

Mike was excited to add my girl's names to his body as he already had Tori and Morgan‘s names on his forearms. As I said, each body part is unique to the pain that you will endure when you sit for a tattoo. I can only imagine the pain my husband went through when he got my daughter’s names in large script on his rib cage!

When we met, Mike had never gone to Vegas so it was a bucket list destination for us to explore together. We became huge fans of old Vegas rather than the strip. Freemont Street is where we like to spend all of our time. Near there, there is an area called Container Park, and within that park, there is an old train caboose. It’s now a tattoo shop. Since my husband is in love with everything trains, it seemed fitting we would get a tattoo to commemorate our first trip to Vegas. Little did I know that for the next three years we would be getting identical tattoos in that same train caboose.

It’s been a couple of years since we were last in Vegas. With Covid, it simply hasn’t been possible. We are looking forward to the next time we go and I’m certain there will be more ink added. I have 3 more tattoos in mind that I’d like to get, and then I think I’m done. As for Mike, I don’t believe stop and tattoos will ever go together.

*After proof reading this blog, a necessary conversation was had. Mike has agreed that no matter how many tattoos, he won't put ink all over his neck and face. This is as much real estate as I could get him to agree to.

By the way, I still don’t like heavy metal, and I never will.

Shannon, The Herdmother