Congratulations on Blossoming Into a Beautiful Woman!

There comes a time in every girl’s life, after she moves to Portland, where she has to make a choice.

She can either move somewhere else, have a kid, or get a tattoo.

You really like Portland, and you absolutely loathe children (especially the concept of your own) so there’s really only one option for you if you want to stay.

You’re going to have to get a tattoo.

You’ll opt to get a tasteful rendering of the great tree of Lothlórien from Lord of the Rings that will range from your shoulder down to your elbow, stretching mostly across your bicep with some of the larger branches bleeding onto your tricep. It’ll be in full color, and it’ll take three hours to do.

During the process you’ll take three breaks, one every forty five minutes or so. Two will be for your pain, one will be for your artist to smoke. You’ll consume two glucose tablets and some garlic toast from a nearby Italian restaurant where the staff of the studio will have ordered lunch. It will take about two and a half weeks to heal, but it will require no touch ups (if your first tattoo is the correct tattoo, this is always the case).

When you exit the shop your bandages (black meat packing paper with a waterproof layer on one side and a soft, smooth layer on the other, bound with clipped black gauze wrapping) will hide your art, but people will already look at you a little differently. Your ass will be just a little bit firmer, your step a little springier, your smile easier.

As you board the 15 to ride back out to the decrepit house you live in with four other people you’ll see something new in their faces, an unspoken daaaaaaamn as you walk down the aisle.

Welcome to the new world, sweetheart. Don’t abuse this new power, we don’t think our hearts could take it.

Congratulations on Blossoming Into a Beautiful Woman!