We called and you answered, dear readers – like sailors to a siren’s call. Except unlike deadly mermaids, we won’t drown you in any bad decision sorrows. Like your friendly snark counselors, we just want to help. We want you to lay back on our proverbial couch and tell us your terrible tattoo stories so we can help you.
Give us all the nitty gritty inside info on your regretful tattoos and we’ll return the favor with a chance to change your luck with either a free cover-up with Robert Smith of Black Mountain Tattoo in Cortez or a free consultation and two free laser removal sessions with Durango Dermatology. The choice is yours. Look at you, finally making good decisions.
ICP ink“Was young and dumb and thought it would be just so awesome to get a tattoo for cheap and at a friend’s home. Was a very costly mistake as the guy didn’t clean his equipment properly and ended up with a bad staff infection. If I win I would love to get the cover up since I think Robert Smith is an amazing artist and person.”
— Beau Duran[image:3]Type O tattoo blues “When I was in first grade I lived in NW Indiana. Following a military protocol of the period (Korean War) the local school districts decided to have the blood type of each student tattooed on their left sides. They decided to do half the class the first day, the other half the next. My name, being as it started with M, put me I in the second days batch. The first kids all came back to the classroom crying. “Screw this!” I thought to myself, so next morning I faked being sick. (My Mom always fell for it.) I came back to school on day three thinking I’d pulled off the slickest scam since John Dillinger broke out of a local jail with a gun made from a bar of soap….But no! They were waiting for me! A nurse who stood taller than Lebron James led me to the nurses office, where upon I spied a big gun that looked like a giant power drill. On it was a fiendish batch of needles in the shape of “O+”. I was then told to pull up my shirt….I was feeling nervous. She then had me put my arm around her neck and “OW!!!!!!” I got stabbed by the big tatoo gun. Hurt? You bet it hurt! But I now had “O+” on my left side, just like a soldier in the US Army. So, if I got wounded in Korea (they might draft 6 year olds) the M.A.S.H. Doctors would know my blood type. Or, if I got hurt on the asphalt playground, fell off the war surplus galvanized steel pipe monkey bars, etc. the nurse would know, too. That was 1950. The tatoo is still there and is mostly just a smudge. Most people don’t believe this could happen, but my older sisters and I all stand as witnesses, and if you do a Google you can read about how Indiana tattooed it’s kids in 1950.”
— Jerry McGeorge[image:2]Military madness“This is what happens when you’re in the military and a friend says let’s get a tattoo.”
— Ryan HurleyStrater skin sesh“I got my first tattoo when I was 15 by a visiting artist. She was doing them out of a room in the Strater Hotel. I had a fake ID. Fortunately, it is not my least favorite. That one was pretty much done in a basement and has already been covered up.”
— Kim Grote-Woodson[image:4]Foot flower fail“Here is my tattoo that I absolutely hate. I got it when I was going through my divorce in 2010. This guys girlfriend convinced me gonna be him do it. I don’t want to call him out but this tattoo is horrible! It was suppose to be 3 flowers, one for each of my children, but the color is very faded, lines are bad and I just think it is embarrassing. Someday I will get something for my now 5 children. I don’t even want to wear sandals because of this ugly thing! I would like to just have it removed because I would rather not be reminded of this hard time period in my life and I don’t think the location, my foot, allows for color to actually stay very long.”
— Crystal Robson[image:5]Don’t believe (in a random tattoo artist)“I want a bad ass cover up! I know Robert can fix this catastrophe of a tattoo. So, I decided on a whim to get a tattoo from someone I did not know or trust… and the lines came out crooked and squiggly, the color did not take, and it just was BAD. I dont want it gone, just want a cover up!”
— Anndi J Crawford[image:6]Penile fish“I had gotten this when I was 18. By a ex’s parent haha. Had been meaning to get it covered up for over 10 years now. And they guy did not do a very well job. In pictures and in person it looks like a man genital part with scales haha.”
(Editor’s note: Bianca is competing for the cover-up.)
— Bianca Keck
