F you! post and an F Yeah! post

This post is going to be an F you! post and an F Yeah! post.

Wanna know what I like? Getting tattooed!
It was an awesome experience!


F You! to Studio One Tattoo in Norwood, Pa...You came highly recommended and you do great work from the examples I have seen on peoples' bodies, but you have the shittiest customer service skills EVER! FYI...you don't leave patrons sitting in your lobby unattended for a half hour. That was 150$ (plus tip) that walked out your door. #middle finger

F Yeah! to Tattoos by RC in Folsom, Pa. I went in and wasn't ignored. I found genuinely interested people who were happy to be tattooing someone. The man stopped his conversation to ask me what I wanted and where and even why. Within a half hour I had my picture outlined and colors picked and I was on the table with that outline on my leg. I met Gibby with the Gun, tattoo gun and real gun holstered on his hip. Gibby is a cool cat, seems rather genuine, has a great sense of humor and the patience to listen to mami yammer on for 45 minutes. We talked about nursing and all the nasty stuff I have seen. We talked about infection control. Our kids, our families. He treated me like a person instead of a customer. He told me what to expect, being an ink virgin, and put my nerves at ease. It felt like, to me, a wall nail dragging across my leg real hard for the outline. A little uncomfortable at times, but not horrible. The coloring didn't hurt at all. Felt like a vibrator on my leg.
The tattoo itself is a tricked out version of a cadeusis. I still don't know how to properly spell that word. A cadeusis is the staff with the snakes wrapped around it. There is one for nursing. (Below)

While on my google search for how to spell cadeusis (I like my spelling better, thank you) I found an alternative cadeusis tat on a website that some other nurse put on her body somewhere. That's a bad ass tat right there. (Below)

I found my pic years ago on the cover of a nudy magazine. I have kept it somewhere in my house since then. Being that this month is my ten year RN anniversary, it figured into getting this done. I have to say that I don't particularly like this field/career anymore. I have crashed, hit the ground and am way past burned out. But I do remember what it once meant to me. When I was once very proud and happy to state that I am a nurse. Inside the mouth of the tattoo, instead of teeth I put the letters RN. To me it symbolizes how the profession can chew one up, can gnaw on your psyche, your ideals. It can sink its fangs in you and you either survive or let it swallow you whole. It hasn't swallowed me whole just yet. Not for lack of trying.
I fell into this career/lifestyle/way of life on a whim and here I am a decade later still trudging along in the excrement and bodily fluids. It has been fun, it has been interesting. Considering I know how to do nothing else, I guess it's my life.
Start (walking through the door) to finish (walking out the door) took all of an hour and 20 minutes.
Thanks to Gibby with the guns! You rock!
And atleast for right now, it's cool as fuck to be a RN.

Jill
3/9/12