Tattoo artists. What absolute scum have you had to deal with on the job?

I spent the better part of the workday free-handing and outlining a dragon back piece on a

woman in her early 20s. She had several pieces on her back that she had received from a kitchen

wizard that we were covering as well. So that raised the difficulty a couple of notches. Her boyfriend and

best friend hung out, chatted and watched movies all evening while we worked. All in all, not a bad

time, until it was time to pay. As we finished up and put the bandage on, she turned to me and said,

Okay, so I get paid next Tuesday. Is it okay if I come back and pay you then?

I laughed because obviously she was joking, right? She had to be joking. She had better be joking.

When I realized she wasn't, I said, no, that's not how this works. Someone is going to have to pay

before you leave. She turned to her boyfriend and asked,

You got this, right? He laughed and said,

You know damn well, I don't have any money. She looked to her best friend who conveniently found

something interesting on the ceiling, so she was no help either. The client then turned to me,

puffed up a bit, trying to look more serious than I did, and asked,

Well, what are you going to do if we just leave? You can't keep us here. I figured this was going

to be our next course of action, and she was right, I couldn't detain them. It gets into a gray

area near the border of kidnapping, and not something that I wanted to chance. But what I did

do was point out to her that I had her

release form with all her information and a photocopy of her ID. I let her know the second they

walk out the door, I'd contact the police and report them for theft of services. Thinking it over

for a few minutes, they sat back down and she started making phone calls, trying to scrape together the cash

to avoid police involvement. About an hour later, a half hour past closing, a guy shows up

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