The Valentine’s Day Gift That Keeps On Giving

In the context of this article, this might actually apply to some of you hill billies out there.

Are you sweating? You should be. Half of you are only in this situation – this obligation to sweat and buy, sweat and buy – because you didn’t have the balls to break it off with someone. You’ve considered chocolate full of rat poison, I get it, but rat poison is not fool-proof. Why make your domestic life any more complicated by adding attempted murder to the list of things your partner can bitch at you about?

The other half of you are here because of love or lust or devotion or duty or whatever such nonsense is the Gorilla Glue of relationships. This half of you saw the word ‘tattoo’ and said “Hmmm” while pensively digging at your facial hair.

Well, knock it off. All of y’all. Because I’m not here to talk you into a heart with a banner through it that says “Tonya.” Or for the more creative of you, a Porsche logo with the word “Portia” inside – yeah, I heard about that guy. Sooo clever. When they broke up, he just had the logo filled in, so he just looked like a douchebag who loved Porsches. And when they got back together – you guessed it, didn’t you? – he had “Portia” tattooed ABOVE the logo. After the second break-up… well, he was a douchebag. He deserved it.

My purpose as The Smartest Woman In the Whole World as Pertains to Your Valentine’s Day Gift is NOT to suggest hearts, banners or names of any kind. You’re going to get bloody, like the Saint this holiday was named after – minus the crucifiction – and you’re going to hurt. But I’m here to tell you unimaginative rednecks that you can spend hundreds of dollars getting whatever the hell tattoo you want and pass it off as a gift. A damned good gift. One she’ll insist you show her friends (in the interest of opening up your options, work out a little and maybe get the tattoo on your bicep).

There’s an asshole in Kentucky who’s blushing, because I stole his idea and he didn’t even know it, didn’t voice it aloud, maybe didn’t even know how far ahead his brain was working until now. In the imaginary world where he’s reading this article, he drops his jaw in shock at my female magic voodoo to read his weasel mind.

The seed of the idea: Maysville, KY, Summer 2010. I’m in a tattoo parlour. I had no tattoos, this was to be my first. I was not alone – for anonymity’s sake, we’ll call my companion ‘My Husband.’ Nervous. Passing out hard candy from my purse to strangers, pretending to be the receptionist, offering unsolicited advice to girls in tank tops with lip rings. You know, normal behavior for a a first-time tattoo-ee.

There was another couple in the waiting room area. Because I was nervous I interrogated them. If he managed not to vomit (this seemed like a distinct possibility, and who wants to ruin a brand new pair of white K-Swiss? Don’t answer that…), they were getting matching tattoos. It was her 18th birthday. She’d picked some inane phrase about love that made no sense, and glowed about it. I think her name was Tonya. She told me the phrase would be interweaved in stars for hers, and his would be… inside a basketball.

That is planning. Small phrase, big tattoo, easy out. From his matching head-to-toe NBA garb, I suspected he might be a basketball fan.

Lightbulb. It was almost perfect – if he had been smarter, he could’ve found a way to make the basketball itself his gift to her. It’s not a big leap:

“I want a basketball because I remember the first time I realized I loved you, I was driving back from Bobby’s after the Suns lost the Western Conference finals in 2005. Every time I look at that tat I’ll remember when I first knew I couldn’t live without you.”

Seriously, this will work for pretty much anything. Here, I’ll just change one thing:

“I want a dragon because they’re like a phoenix, but a dragon is more powerful, like my love for you – and the first time I realized I loved you I was driving back from Bobby’s after the Suns lost the Western Conference finals in 2005. Every time I..”

It's a pizza. Because we met at Little Caesar's.

Tattoo idea + very specific bullshit story + love = YOU WIN.

I just saved you two hundred bucks in the Wal-Mart jewelry section or a very embarassing perv-wander through Adam and Eve’s, and I got you some kick-ass ink in the process.

You’re welcome.

By the way, the dude didn’t pass out. But he cried.

About Amanda Gowin

Amanda Gowin lives in the foothills of Appalachia with her husband and son. Her fiction is currently being spread to the four corners of the universe, but you can find updates about all that crap here: lookatmissohio.wordpress.com

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