Entertaining Guests from Foreign Countries in Dallas

My brother-in-law is in town and I feel a bit guilty for not being a proper host. I've been rather good about not spending time on my computer when I get home from work (thus the lack of quality blog postings), but I really am not much of a host as far as entertaining and site seeing.

On Monday my wife was in a minor fender bender and that has further cramped my style because now I don't always have a car. Today, she took the car so I had to hitchhike to work.

But, I do the best I can. On Tuesday, he was wanting to have some Texas Barbecue and oogle Texas women so I took him to Bone Daddy's. A good time was had by all.

Yesterday I took him to a couple of local tattoo studios to get some ink done. Tattoo studios are interesting.

The first one we went to was called Love-N-Hate Tattoo Studio. It was in a fairly good location. As in, you weren't scared to leave your car parked outside. Once you enter, there was an appropriately inked and pierced man sitting behind the desk who gave you a rude stare like you were interrupting his contemplation of the grander meaning of life.

He took the picture that my brother-in-law wanted and ran back to get a "quote". They told us $60. This is for a small tattoo about an inch square, all in black, on the muscly area between the thumb and forefinger.

I should mention that I tell these people ahead of time that his English is not perfect and I have to sometimes translate.

He thinks about the $60 and decides it's okay, he'll do it. Then this rude little lady comes out and says, "How old are you?" He says, "Eh?" Not expecting to be accosted in such a manner, his translator was not ready for an English interrogation by a scary looking tattoo woman.

Now she thinks he's stupid and asks again for the age followed by an irrational explanation of youngsters, first tattoos and hands. I wasn't listening too well because as soon as she started talking I was looking for the exit. She was that bad as she sat back on the couch betwixt some kind of wicked love triangle and on the cushy expanse of her pompous ass.

There was one more studio within 5 minutes so we decided to try that one. It was called "A Better Tattoo". In all honesty, I was leery about leaving my car out front. There were people hanging around outside a convenient store or something in the same parking lot which was dimly lit. When we went in, there were 4 people. One on a laptop, one getting a tattoo, one giving a tattoo and one young woman in ripped up jeans and a t-shirt that said something about dropping acid. If I gave it enough thought I could probably remember the exact phrase. It was along a similar vein as the "make love not war" thing.

It was a casual environment, but they were all nice albeit a bit socially awkward. They quoted him $50 and he had his tattoo within 45 minutes and he was very happy with it. They listened to me when I explained the language barrier. They gave us both the care instructions and I promised I'd get my wife to translate it for him. If you are going to get a Tattoo in the North Dallas (Denton, Carrollton, Lewisville) area, I'd highly recommend the folks at A Better Tattoo. That's where I'll go when I'm old enough to get one.