Septicemia anyone?
Two tattoos, one standard seaside fare, the other a bit more special.

The seaside applied tat came after a week long military exercise, followed by a weekend spending a fortnight's wages on beer, fags and said tattoo. Managed to convince tattooist, that, although I'd been drinking for several hours, I was sober enough to have a tattoo done. Suffice it to say, when I got home, the missus was not best pleased, pay all spent and only a tacky tattoo to show for it.

The second tattoo, or more accurately ta'tau was done in Samoa, in an open sided fale, with livestock running around outside. It cost $20 and three bottles of pop. It was applied by dipping a tool made from a sharks tooth and a piece of wood into Indian ink, placing it on the skin and then hitting the tooth with a mallet sized chunk of wood, again and again and again. It hurt, quite a bit. No, it hurt a lot, a real lot. Strange thing is, it was all such a spiritual experience that the pain became it's own anaesthetic and I spend most of the 45 minute operation with a beatific smile on my face.

Unfortunately, open sided houses on the edge of the jungle on south pacific islands are not known for their cleanliness. Some days after the tat was done I developed a bit of an infection. By the time I returned home 10 days later I was unable to sleep because of the headaches and nausea, not to mention the fact that the pus oozing from the tat kept drying onto the bed clothes, causing great discomfort when I moved causing the fresh pus-scabs to rip off.

The doctor said the headaches where due to the sepcis running around in the blood stream and prescribed antibiotics that looked like they should have been fed to a horse.

I now have a unique Samoan armband ta'tau, with a scarred 'bald patch' on my inner arm :(

Insert length related double-entendre here
(lardyboy Next stop, Fissplap Central, Fri 1 Dec 2006, 11:04, Reply)