Stick-And-Poke Tats Are The New Face-Painting At Your Kids’ Parties!
Here at Bunny Ears, we’re all about trends. We try to stay on top of what’s hip and happening in the ever-exciting world of parenting. We would literally rather be drawn and quartered than be behind the times, which is why we go all out at our children’s’ birthday parties. Clowns? Boring. Bounce houses? Yawn. Piñatas? Unless blood is drawn, we don’t want to hear about it. We’re not basic yuppie parents. We’re hella cool.
Naturally, we were thrilled to have recently discovered the new trend permeating the kiddie party zeitgeist: stick-and-poke tattoos. For just a few bucks and the risk of exposing your tots to various airborne pathogens, you can make your seven-year-old the talk of the playground! Everyone will want to come to the party and get some brand new ink shaped like one of those “S” doodles you used to carve into desks! Let’s meet some of the folks taking the “stabbing kids with dirty needles” industry by storm!
We encountered our first artisan while in the midst of stabbing a very cool skull-and-crossbones design into the arm of a little girl dressed like a Disney princess at pizza parlor. Cinderella was handling her new tat like a champ. He introduced himself as The Artist Known as Geoff, Pronounced Gëf, Formally Jeff. He would not allow us to call him anything shorter, which we found enchanting. We asked The Artist Known as Geoff, Pronounced Gëf, Formally Jeff how long he has been tattooing, and he simply shrugged and spat on the ground, a gesture that indicated to us that bypassing the years of hard work put in by most reputable tattoo artists doesn’t matter when the kids love you.
The Artist Known as Geoff, Pronounced Gëf, Formally Jeff informed us that he’s the only person that is allowed to tattoo his own body because “his birth canvas cannot be tainted by foreign hands.” He then added that he’s “not gay like that.” When we asked about his rates for party packages, he asked us if we were the health department for the sixth time before cautiously handing us his “business card,” which was actually just a punch card for a local sandwich shop.
Our second children’s stick-and-poke artist could only be reached via Instagram, where she’s known as @DustyVibezz. She runs a birthday party tattoo business out of her charming yurt in Joshua Tree, California, which we would describe as a Chuck E. Cheese where you order food with tarot readings and all of the games have been replaced by a hodgepodge of linens and succulents. As we entered the yurt, we were greeted by the sight of Dusty carefully tattooing three single dots onto the hand of a juice-stained boy.
Dusty explained that she is an intuitive tattoo artist who uses her clairvoyance to create designs. With a needle crudely taped to a crystal, she pokes away at the little tykes with her eyes closed, letting “the spirits guide [her] needle.” Once she finished the third dot on the youngster’s hand, she let his very cool mother know that this microscopic work of art will cost about $500.
This year, instead of celebrating your little one’s big day with blasé Spiderman face paint or kitten whiskers, treat your babies to some fresh backyard stick-and-poke tattoos. Even if they contract hepatitis for the sake of a broken-pen pot leaf tattoo, at least they can learn a new multisyllabic word! At the very least, it’s not nearly as dangerous as something like vaccinations.
Photos: Pixabay, The Author’s Friend’s Broken Pencil, The Author’s Dumb Friend Brian, The Author
