Imagine, if you will ...

It's Saturday night. You and a couple buddies have been bar-hopping since early evening, and now all three of you are pretty drunk.

Nothing new or surprising, here.

Almost staggering, you stumble into an arcade that is next door to the seedy bar you just left. You really can't remember how many drinks you've had, but you know at some point in the past hour or so you got into a contest to see how many shots of Jagermeister you could down in a 5 second period.

After 3 rounds, you win. Sorta. In the morning you will feel like you've been soaked in cough syrup. And your ass hurts, too.

Well, this arcade has a row of antique video games along its back wall (it's a surprise the three of you made it that far). And guess what! They have a Pac-Man game! Your old favorite from college. Oh, man! What a hoot!

"I bet I can beat you guys at this!" you trumpet.

"Whatta ya wanna bet?" says one.

"I dunno," you counter, "sumpin good."

"I got an idea," says the other ...

Later, it becomes obvious that you are losing, and losing big. Now, you're beginning to wish you hadn't made that stupid bet, but the prospect of you winning had clouded your judgment. Yeah, right, no alcohol was involved in that decision. Nope, none at all. Anyway ...

After having lost something like 20 games to these bozos, you have little choice but to submit to the penalty inherent with losing the bet. In disgrace, and hoping you'd somehow ultimately get out of it, you all stumble off to find the nearest tattoo parlor.

Unfortunately, you find one.

The artist doesn't want to do the job, but you agree to it, and besides, your two buddies are actually paying for it, so you decide to go ahead. You think: even if it's stupid, it still makes a good way to start a conversation.

Yeah, right.



And that's ... the rest of the story.