Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

80 The Tattooist
didn't trust my own intuition, 1didn't follow my own
standards. 1compromised. 1 didn't want to do the tattoo. And
when she came out and told me that, "I really love Larry Joe
Vitelli but 1 have no idea how he feels about me," 1 knew that
she had built up this totally unreal expectation that that tattoo
was going to win Larry Joe Vitelli. Obviously Larry Joe Vitelli
would consider her pathetic at that point because obViously he
wasn't the least bit interested in her. So what is that going to
do to the psyche of this girl? Either she just is totally apathetic
about it or is potentially going to be self-destructive. She was
self-destructive in getting the tattoo to begin with. 1shuddered.
1 really did, 1 felt sick, nauseous. 1went home and 1 couldn't
sleep that night. 1 came back the next day and 1 told (the
owner), "You can fire me right now but the next time somebody
comes through the door and wants a tattoo and 1don't want to
do it, I'm not going to do it. You want to take the responsibility,
you want to be the one to do that then you do it." So he
respected that. 1 should have done that right then and there. 1
should have taken that stand before 1 carved that fucking
name in that girl. 111 never do anything like that again! That
was a real lesson for me.
Through contact with customers the tattooist learns how to
handle recurrent interactional situations and to control the definition
of the tattoo situation held by clients-an issue that will be
discussed in some detail in the following chapter. Personal styles
of dealing with clients vary considerably, but all tattooists, of necessity,
devise ways of easing interaction with and controlling
their customers.
Potential tattooees tend to ask fairly standard questions-by far
the most common being, "does it hurt?"-and tattooists develop
standard responses to these questions. Sometimes the responses
are humorous and designed to break the tension ("Did you ever
beat off with a handful of barbed wire?"). More commonly, tattooists
attempt to project a serious and helpful demeanor and answer
standard questions simply and directly.
(What is the most common question that people ask you?)
"How much does that cost?" "Does it really hurt?" "How bad