With the return of warmer weather, fest season and St. Patrick’s Day comes an upswing in the drunken debauchery in Athens.
And for some, the results can be permanent.
Though people get tattoos during all times of the year, when booze gets involved, they could be more likely to make an impulse decision.
Quinn Corrado, an undergraduate studying exercise physiology, is no stranger to drunk tattoos. In fact, he proudly bears three.
He received two in Cancun during one session. Scrolled across his upper-left arm is his last name,“Corrado,” and on his upper-right arm, his father’s last name, “Gibbs.”
“We’d (my friends and I) been drinking on the beach all day,” Corrado said.
Though the tattoos came out of a drunken decision, Corrado said he thinks they turned out well and he has no regrets about having them done.
Not all drunk tattoos come out as success stories, however. Corrado’s third tattoo, a Reiki symbol for balance that’s located on his upper-back, was done by a friend through the “stick-and-poke” method.
“My friend was practicing with (tattooing) a lot and he asked if anyone wanted to be a guinea pig,” Corrado recalled.
The stick-and-poke method involves dipping a needle in ink and then marking the skin. The method is not known as a particularly professional one and the tattoos tend to fade unless multiple sessions are done, he said.
“I just remember everyone being really drunk and then someone said, ‘Who wants a tattoo?’” said Corrado’s friend, CJ Rolnicki, an undergraduate studying political science.
Although Corrado said this last tattoo didn’t turn out very well, he said he isn’t sorry he got it.
“I don’t really regret much because I think everything is kind of a learning experience,” Corrado said.
Though most tattoo shops in the U.S. have policies against tattooing intoxicated individuals, a person’s level of intoxication might go unnoticed until the marking of skin actually begins.
Shawn Hawks, co-owner of Skin Hooked Tattoo and Body Piercing, 8 N. Court St., had one such person stop by during Homecoming. The woman involved didn’t seem drunk when she first came in, but after the tattooing began she started to get clammy. She then passed out and urinated on herself.
“She started to come to, I looked at her and I said, ‘Ma’am, I need to ask you a question. Have you been drinking?’ and that’s when she told me she had,” Hawks said.
Hawks added the parlor’s policy is not to tattoo people that are “obviously intoxicated,” and they make clients sign paperwork stating they are not under the influence of alcohol, drugs or blood thinners.
Although she was intoxicated while having her tattoo done, she was allowed time to regain her composure and the tattoo was finished, but not without tiny flaws in the art that resulted from her moving and involuntary twitching.
The results can range from an almost-perfect drunk tattoo to a disastrous scribble. However, both Hawks and Corrado agree that those getting tattoos, especially those under the influence, need to be careful and think through what they’re doing.
“I always tell people, ‘Get an image that you like, put it up on your fridge and look at it every day for a month. And if it’s something you can still look at everyday, get it,’” Hawks said.
tt315212@ohiou.edu
@TiffanyTouville
