Ouch!

Yesterday, while we waited for the artist to take Lisa's design, transfer it to parchment paper and copy the lettering from their font book, a young woman and her child came in with a colorful character named Critter. According to the parlor owner, Critter has quite the history. He used to be a bonafide cowboy in Eastern Oregon, but now he's a mechanic. The child looked to be around 6, 7 or 8. Very hard to tell, due to her birth defect. Her legs (if she has any) may have been 8 inches long. Her mother asked which one of us was getting a tattoo and if it was the first one. Then she told me it doesn't hurt. I responded that that's what people tell you when you're about to do something that DOES hurt. Then she began to elaborate about what the needles feel like.
After the first 5 minutes, I began to wonder why I didn't choose to have my nose pierced. That would've only hurt for a brief moment. :>. It felt pretty much like you'd think it would when someone repeatedly jabs a group of needles into your body - painful. I could deal with the pain, but I was bothered that I couldn't control the twitching of my leg - or the result of the twitching (jerk, jerk). I found that if I pressed my calf firmly into the chair that it helped.
It probably took an hour or so to complete. I'm not looking forward to the peeling stage. That won't look attractive!