"Tattoo" I'm a big stand-up fan, and a couple of my favourite stand-up comedians have written funny material about tattoos [Dave Gorman's Googlewhack adventure and Rhod Gilbert: The man with the flaming battenberg tattoo]. Both of their stories hit quite close to me and my tattoo. You see just like them, I am not a fan of tattoos. I find them completely pointless... Yet I have one!! The origins of my tattoo stems from a large amount of Guinness combined with a petty need to always be right! Just after my first Son (14) was born, me and my friends went out to wet the baby's head. This involved sinking pints of the black stuff, in an Irish bar, underneath a tattoo parlour. Sounds like a normal ritual. I would normally agree with you on this, but not on this occasion. You see, the friends I was out with, were of the "heavy metal-loving" variety. They loved their hard music, random piercings and tattoos. Now after 4/5 pints they all decide to get some form of mutilation. Whether this be some shard of shrapnel stuck through them, or scarred for #life by a pointless tattoo. I didn't really pay much attention to the decision process... Right up until they all look at me, to see what I was going to have done!!!! Now, the rest of this story will be patched together from random bits of information supplied by the other attendees of this emotionally blocked traumatic part of my #life. It seems it took a couple of extra pints to get me to fold, but they persuade me to have a tattoo. Only I'm adamant, that my tattoo will be completely unique... something no-one else would ever have (a year or two down the line, this failure upsets me to no end)!!!! They get me into the parlour, and in front of "Dai" the mutilator. I "apparently" spew out a an idea, a tattoo concept so benign, that as the words leave my lips I believe it to be the most original idea known to man... There is only one problem. Dai the mutilator is unable to do this image unprompted... he needs a copy of the image to work from! Now thankfully, I'm drunk enough to supply such an image... you see, the image I have chosen can be found in any local supermarket. And right across the road from us is just such an establishment!!! Oh Joy!!! My "friends" manage to make it sound like my idea, and I run across the road to purchase the required image. On my return, the mutilator traces said image, transfers it to my arm and proceeds to carve into me with his tattoo needles!!! The whole Idea of my tattoo was that it was unique, that no-one would EVER have such a thing permanently branded to them. And my choice fitted just that. An image that was so pointless, so benign, no-one would ever have the same thing!!! I left that tattoo parlour, slightly pale from all the alcohol, and lack of blood. But oddly glowing from a sense of right, a smug "I Win!!" look to me. (Waking up with a Guinness hangover is nothing to be laughed at... it is one of the most horrific things to befall a man... But waking up with a Guinness hangover in your arm is a totally new experience!!!) The next day I looked down in horror, as this appalling blood-soaked image stared back at me. And in a few minutes the shocking realisation kicked in. Followed by the beer soaked flashbacks of the night before!! What had I done... This image would be with me for #life! It couldn't be shared, it was too embarrassing... It wasn't of some flaming tribal image... or some patriotic symbol of a Dragon or celtic sign that I could show off!!! It was far worse... in all my drunken wisdom... drowning in the need for a unique pointless image... I got tattooed with... The fairy washing up liquid baby!!! So not only did my "friends" persuade me to get a tattoo... they also managed to persuade me to run to a supermarket, buy a bottle of the stuff... get Dai to trace it and have it permanently inked on me!! Now in fairness, that image sounds pretty unique... who in their right mind would have such a thing??? Jump a couple of years into the future... I now live 170 miles away from where this happened, and I now work in a bingo hall (God's waiting room). I walk past a group of old dears, having a chin-wag.. and one of them has the same tattoo, on her shoulder!!! I now couldn't even claim that it was an original image.. some 60+ year old lady also had the same tattoo!!! to say I was upset, does not even come close!!!. I still live 170 miles away from home, and from the evil mates who did this to me... And I tell the story now and again, to colleagues and new friends. A few months back(13 years after getting it done!!), I'm telling this story to friends.., Explaining in detail how it came about. And I'm met with faces of disbelief. "So that is the exact fairy washing up liquid baby from the bottle??" they said. I explain that as it is traced, it has to be the exact copy from the bottle?? Up one of them jumps, kitchen-bound! He returns with a bottle of fairy washing up liquid! now after 13 years, the bottles have obviously changed design, the baby itself has changed... But it had also changed back! they held up the bottle to my arm to measure. and the room turns silent... Because at this point, my jaw has dropped. Anger spreads through me like a cancer and people can see i'm about to blow!!! This is the first time I have had the bottle next my arm in 13+ years! And after looking at these things side to side, i notice something fundamentally wrong. Something i should of noticed when getting the damned tattoo (and would of, if sober!!). You see, the image was traced off the bottle... then transferred to my arm... therefore, the tattoo I have is not the exact image off the bottle... IT'S THE MIRROR IMAGE!!! the baby was facing the wrong way! over a decade of telling this story, and this was the first time I'd noticed. Every time I'd seen the tattoo it was in the mirror... So always looked the same as it did on the bottle!!! You can imagine how the room reacted once they realised why I was upset... They still take the piss!!! Oddly, I now work for a company that makes the rival product to Fairy (Finish). And the Tattoo is the butt of jokes there too!!