So much to unpack here. What IS a punk anyway? By our definition a punk is someone who starts something they know they can’t finish. They balk. They beg out. You know the drill: alligator mouth, hummingbird ass. Well, that’s Jason Little.

The rundown: Jason entered our Vampire Tattoo promotion. It required your name; phone number; where on your body you would put the tattoo; the image you wanted to get tattooed; and a budget. All of these would be weighed to select who would win a cheap or possibly free tattoo from our realism artist Will Wood. We were throwing a goth-themed St Patrick’s Day party, you see, and Will thought it’d be fun to share his love of movie monsters with someone like minded on a day when he’d usually be off work.

Jason wasn’t selected to be tattooed by Will because he’d participated in a similar promotion about 15 years earlier and it wasn’t a great experience for Will, but Jason wanted something cool and Amanda was willing to do the piece, a portrait of Kiefer Sutherland as the vampire David from The Lost Boys movie, so we moved forward. Apologies for the comma splices, I write the way I talk. Jason also had a reasonable budget for a promotion like this, at $400. Keep that last part in mind, it’s the crux of this whole story and it’s important to remember that the amount was his idea. Normally a tattoo like that would run double, but it was supposed to be for fun and Amanda was excited about the idea, so we moved forward and set up his appointment.

Jason didn’t show.

12 noon on Sunday right? yeah, that’s the day and time. He’d paid his $80 nonrefundable deposit. Check the phone-no messages. Weird. 12:15, let’s give him a call, hopefully he’s okay:

He answers, ‘Hey Jason, you good man?’

‘Yeah, I was just about to call you, I’m not coming in, I can’t afford the tattoo.’

Wait, what?!?

Now, we get it, tattoos can be a significant investment. But let’s keep this in mind, the price offered was Jason’s idea. The other shockingly silly thing is the fact that Jason acts like he didn’t KNOW he didn’t have the money until THAT DAY. Now come on, who doesn’t know Friday that they’re gonna be broke on Sunday? This was an entirely avoidable situation. If he’d simply called us with a couple days notice we would have rescheduled his appointment, Amanda would have put someone else in that booking so she could make some money, and Jason could have gotten his tattoo, no worries.

Remember where I said Will had tattooed him 15 years earlier and it wasn’t a great experience? It’s because Will found Jason to be someone with only very shaky dependability. But at least back then he showed up (the tattoo was free). This was just plain old dumb and honestly disrespectful. Normally if someone no-call, no-shows their appointment at Lighthouse Tattoo they forfeit their deposit and have to pay IN FULL to reschedule, it’s our way of protecting ourselves from someone screwing us over again. In this case, this was for a discounted promotional (re: cheap) tattoo and since Jason had burnt us a Little in the past (see what we did there?) we decided to let him know his business was no longer welcome at Lighthouse Tattoo. I mean, not that he’d ever actually been tattooed here before, Lighthouse didn’t open until 2017.

Well, we had a technical issue and this part got deleted, but trust us, it was very funny.

Jason, upon learning he’d been banned, told us he thought we should’ve taken a bigger deposit so we wouldn’t have to ban him. We presume he did this because he’s stupid, it’s legitimately the only thing we could come up with at this point. I mean, come on Jason, that’s just dumb as fuck. Besides, our deposit policy isn’t a punishment or so you’ll get tattooed. Deposits are simply so people WILL LET US KNOW AHEAD OF TIME IF THEY CAN’T MAKE IT. You know, the thing you failed to do. That way, people don’t lose their deposit, it just gets transferred to the new appointment. We wouldn’t even take deposits if people like you didn’t exist, but they do so we do. Will stopped taking deposits for his regulars, since they have a relationship based on mutual respect, something we’re sure you don’t understand.

But lecturing us on where WE went wrong because YOU didn’t show up is disrespectful so Will sent a good ‘ol Fuck You to Jason. Hey, it’s how he feels and at Lighthouse Tattoo we believe it’s important that people can express their feelings. Jason then threatened to beat Will up.

Now, here’s something you may not know about Will Wood. If you want to fight, he’ll fight you, especially at Lighthouse Tattoo or his home. Philosophically, anyone who threatens him in these places with physical violence cannot be backed down from and never will be. He’d rather die. Just so you know.

But here’s the thing about being a punk, like his other appointment, Jason had no intention of ever showing up. He just wanted to talk trash because he was mad that…. well honestly we’re not sure, what did he think was going to happen? Discount tattoo appointment; no-call, no-show; total lack of accountability or contrition; outright disrespect- No, we don’t see why he should have expected anything other than to be told to fuck right off. Seems like he was begging for it.

Then the 1 star review came. He lied and said if you cancel your appointment we’ll keep your deposit and ban you. Here’s the problem Jason, you didn’t CANCEL your appointment, you damn dummy, you just didn’t show up. Cancelling requires a phone call, or a voicemail, maybe a text, a DM, or even an email would have done the trick. But you didn’t do any of them and you managed to show your true colors in rare fashion and wildly embarrass yourself. (At least anyone with any good sense would be embarrassed, so maybe not in your case, but whatever.)

This is why we consider our Knucklehead of the Month award a public service- Jason Little can read and re-read this post so maybe he can figure out where he went wrong being a punk so he doesn’t treat any other service professional the way he treated us. I mean, we won’t hold our fucking breath, but one can hope.