I have a fucking tattoo story.
I met an art student through a friend. Art student (Terin) was working as a tattoo apprentice at a local shop and needed to practice on someone, so I said why the hell not. I let him tattoo a bat on my upper thigh. It is a small bat, probably 4inchesx4inches, and it took him about 5 hours. No color. His boss had to go over the entire thing.
That isn't too bad. So he gets let go from this shop, apparently the owner is racist. Whatever. He gets another gig at a different shop, this time as a professional. I go back in, he's had some more experiences, I get a friend price, its all good. I tell him what I want, he draws it up, its slightly larger than the other piece and it still takes him roughly 5 hours to do the outline but whatever. I go back in, it takes him another 5 hours to shade in, and then another 5 to color it during a separate session. He's slow, but I don't mind it.
Here's where shit gets weird. After he had finished the outline for my 3rd tattoo, I get a call from Terin.
"The owners of the shop are trying to fuck me, they don't pay me what I deserve to be paid, I work all the time for scraps, I'm quitting while they are on vacation and I need some help moving my tattoo stuff out of their shop."
So I think its odd but whatever Terin is my friend, I show up to help him move his shit out. When I get there, Terin is talking to the cops saying that the owners of the shop are smuggling drugs through an international airport and I go ahead and gently grab Terin by the arm and lead him away from the cops while telling Terin "Hey dude, you can't say stuff like that to the cops. That is a serious accusation."
Terin calms down and decides while I am moving all of his shit out, he is going to take pictures of all of the pay stubs that they have on their computer so he can prove he worked there. Okay, whatever.
Terin had lined up all of his tattoo gear along one wall, and I would grab an armful of stuff, ask him if it needs to go, and pack it up in the car. I got all of his stuff loaded up, and he asks me for a ride to his house. Sure dude, whatever.
He makes me take this long, roundabout way to his house because he thinks he's being followed.
Once he gets into his house, he grabs his pot and chucks it over the balcony. He then grabs some "necessities," which included season 1 of Dragon Ball Z. Okay, whatever dude.
He asks if he can stay the night with me because he thinks someone is going to blow up his house. At this point, I'm reluctant, but we've gone this far and by now I've known Terin for years, so hey, why not?
I take Terin to my house and ask him what happened. Why did he quit so suddenly? He then takes the next 6 hours trying to explain why he quit, but he's just babbling nonsense. He unloads all of his tattoo gear in my house for safe keeping. He's going to take it up to his mom's the next day. The next day, I wake up for work and he is gone. His shit is all over my house though.
After I get off work that night, I get a phone call from the cops. They want to know if I've seen Terin. I tell them not since the night before. They want to ask me some questions. I tell them I've been drinking and can't go in to the station. They decide they will just stop by. I meet them outside.
The cops then tell me that they caught me on camera stealing over $1000 worth of property from the shop, felony grand theft, but the owners won't press charges if I just return the stuff. I show the officer on Googlemaps how to get to Terin's house and they leave.
That night, around midnight, Terin returns to my house. I tell him what the cops said. He goes into our music room and digs out the stolen equipment from my boyfriend's bass drum. I drive him to the police station and he returns the stolen equipment. I'm off the hook, the cops knew I was not involved, they asked Terin to step into the back of the station for questioning. I go back out to my car to wait on Terin, and then I see the cops take Terin out back and put him in their cop car and drive off.
The next day I found out that the shop owners did drop the theft charges after he returned the stolen tattoo shit, but they caught Terin on camera beating up an old man in the shop and pressed charges for that.
That's my tattoo story. I had to get the 3rd tattoo colored somewhere else. I have not got another tattoo since then. Fuck Terin. He still tattoos in my town. Unbelievable.
TL/DR: Tattoo artist framed me for felony grand theft but then he got arrested.