Tattoo Kisses

Luca loves kissing. His main non-human squeeze is the Curious George stuffed animal he acquired from Elijah (he threw in the Hand, Foot and Mouth disease at no extra charge). Luca also loves shoving that rotting monkey corpse in my face and saying, “Gorgie! Gorgie!” And then he expects me to kiss it. Yuck.

But luckily for us, Luca also likes getting his germs from humans. He even tries to kiss Eli, which usually results in getting shoved to the floor. With love.

The other night, we accepted a dinner invitation from a co-worker of mine. He and his lovely family live in a warehouse in a “colorful” par of Denver (next door to a marijuana grow house). The Hamanns were by far the nerdiest people in attendance. There were artists and pro skateboarders and lots and lots of tattoos. If I hadn’t already known how incredibly nice everyone was, I would’ve been a bit scared.

After some delicious homemade Vietnamese food and a glass of whisky (Why do I drink whisky now? I live among the cowboys. It’s the law) it was time to get Luca and Eli home.

It takes us a bit longer to say goodbye nowadays. I demand that Elijah give everyone in attendance a hug. It’s good for his socialization. And there were a couple hot chicks there and I figured he should get hugs from hot chicks now while it’s easy.

I then carted Luca around to say goodbye. Now, usually this involves him hiding in my neck folds and I have to apologize for his Stranger Danger. But this night, he treated everyone like they were rotting Curious Georges. He started kissing everyone. And I mean everyone: men, women, kids, the fridge, a half eaten eggroll, a bottle of whiskey…

But my favorite smooch was this dude I work with, Bryan Cavanaugh. He’s a dedicated bachelor. He wears black or gray every day. He’s covered in tattoos. And he has a more than striking resemblance to punk rock icon, Henry Rollins. When Luca went in for the kiss, I could actually see Bryan’s brain working

“Um. There is a baby who is trying to kiss me. And his mouth is open. What the hell do I do? Will I get arrested if I give him a kiss? Where do I put my hands? Is he going to make me gay? Do I say ‘thank you?’ Does this make me his godfather?”

In the end, they shared a very sweet kiss and neither one was permanently damaged.