Triskaidekaphobia - the fear of the number 13.

Friday the 13th tattoo

Irrational? Perhaps. Any fear or phobia is personal to each person and when it comes to innate fears, there is no such thing as rational thinking.

I’m afraid of spiders. I just don’t like the thought of them crawling on me, poisonous or not. Is it rational? No. Will I scream like a girl? Undoubtedly.

For the true Triskaidekaphobic going outside on a Friday the 13^th is unthinkable, much less getting a ..gasp… 13 tattooed on themself on that very day.

Some tattoo shops live for Friday the 13^th. Ok, “live” might be too strong a term but they definitely look forward to it. You see, some shops have a “Friday the 13^th Special.”

Such is the case at Massive Tattoos at 5320 Cameron Street on the corner of Cameron and Hacienda. The deal is this; $13 tattoos plus $7 gratuity. So $20 bucks for a tat. What a frickin’ bargain.

Today, Laine Mischief and I decided to get Friday the 13^th tats to commemorate 13 years together. We would get matching tattoos in the same place as a lasting memento.

Mischief and Josh Bailey

We met one of the Massive artists at a First Friday a few months ago and he was handing out flyers advertising the February and March Friday the 13ths this past Spring.

We didn’t make it then but would not miss out on the deal this time. Given the close proximity to our anniversary we couldn’t miss this opportunity.

We drove down there and were greeted by Josh Bailey when we walked in. Hanging on the pony wall in front of the double doors was the poster of about 60 Friday the 13^th designs. There were 13’s in every style you could imagine. Skulls, hash marks, roman numerals, even a pearl necklace and a pair of boobs – the necklace being the 1 and the boobs being the 3

Josh explained the prices and we picked a design after some haggling and compromising with each other. Laine wanted to add a bow to the skull that we picked out and Josh confirmed that wouldn’t be a problem.

He explained that they’re rotating the Friday the 13 tats amongst the artists. So he would do mine and Laine’s would be done by Schwab. Shawn was working on one when we walked in. And Josh remarked that he’d done 8 already today.

Laine Mischief and Schwab getting her matching tat.

In addition to marking people with the bad luck number he got one himself today by Shawn. His fifth. All on a Friday the 13^th. We agreed that it would seem weird to get a 13 tattoo on a day that’s not a Friday the 13^th. It’s like getting a Halloween tattoo on Christmas.

Discount prices like these are a good loss leader although some Friday the 13^th’s are really, really busy. Josh said that when they had the back-to-back Friday the 13^th’s, the first one was super busy with a line out the door. The second one, not so much.

His theory is that everyone who wanted one got one in February. When March came around that bug was satisfied.

He said it was a good day today and he was happy with the traffic. The Friday the 13^th Special is just one of their marketing tools. They also run a Susan G. Komen special during the month of September with all of the proceeds going to the Susan G. Komen fund.

Schwab drew Laine's bow on her skull.

And after reports this last September that some breast cancer charities might not be on the up-and-up, it’s nice to know that all of this goes straight to Susan G. Komen. They charge $30 for pink ribbon tattoos. I might get one next year.

So if you’re not Triskaidekaphobic think about whether you want to get one on the next Friday the 13^th, it’s in August 2010. You can go to Massive and see Josh or Schwab or one of the other tattoo shops that have the special too.

On a special note, I’d like to say Good Luck to Valerie Logue. She was doing a custom half sleeve of two peacocks while Elaine was getting her tat. Valerie did about ¾’s of the sleeve and she is 8 months pregnant. We joked that her daughter will be soothed by the buzz of a tattoo gun when she get’s crabby once she’s out of the womb. Her customer hopes she’ll be able to finish it before she gives birth!