Remind Me To Do This
Published by McBoing May 17th, 2006 in Bodily Autonomy, HealthI would, but I just got a dead bird tattooed on my arm yesterday*:
If all else fails, if family members can’t find her living will or can’t face the responsibility of ending life-sustaining measures, she said, then doctors will know her wishes by simply reading the tiny words that are tattooed over her sternum.
“I probably should have had it dated, too,” she said.
As it was, the first time she entered Gary’s Professional Tattooing Studio, the employee balked, saying he wasn’t sure it would be ethical.
“I said, ‘OK, but you get these druggies and drunks in here and you do it. Do I look lucid or not?’ ” she remembered.
The employee still demurred. Shop owner Gary Lietz said he, too, was reluctant, but eventually gave in. Wohlford even talked him into a senior citizen discount.
Thanks to Boing Boing and eighty-year-old Mary Wohlford of Decorah, Iowa, we can all avoid the embarassment of enduring a Terri Schiavo-esque Congressional kabuki dance without even knowing it.
* No, I’m not kidding.
Damn, I don’t like the whole needle part of the tattooing process. Actually, I don’t like the infusion with ink part, either. Guess I’m stuck with writing the phrase with a magic marker >_
That is effing SWEET! She is my honorary grandma for the YEAR.
Except I have a rule: no text gets tattooed on my body. EVER.
Can we get a picture of the dead birdie? I’m curious. An ink aficionado myself, I have about 20 hours of work on my body so far. More is coming.