Alex understands why we are so unbelievably annoyed with him right now, but he doesn't regret what he did, and he's not exactly repentant about it. His take, seemingly, is that in this case it was better to ask forgiveness than permission; he knew that not only would we say no to even the idea of a tattoo, but that getting one isn't exactly legal at his age. He also was well aware that he could pull off acting older long enough to get it, but he didn't consider the consequences of his actions, so far as the artist was concerned.

If we decided to make a huge issue of it, we could have the guy shut down. If we sued, we would likely win. None of that is on our agenda; Ian dragged Alex down there at noon today to get the tattoo artist's side of the story, and the guy was, Ian says, completely horrified, embarrassed, apologetic, and contrite at what had happened. He never once blamed Alex and accepted it all himself; there's nothing that can be done, though, because whether we like it or not, Alex has a nice red cross embedded in his skin for the rest of his life. He did pull his records to see if Alex had written down an ID number, and he did: his school ID card number. At least he did not try to pass off a fake ID, something we were minutely concerned about.

Even though there's nothing we can do about the actual tattoo short of expensive laser removal that would likely leave a scar (which we won't do; let him live with it, good or bad. There will be reactions from other important adults in his life soon enough) we can't just let this slide by. Alex is a wonderful kid, he's usually mature and thinks things through, but in some things he tends to view himself as an adult and with it comes a sense of entitlement he hasn't yet earned. That bothers both Ian and I, but more than that, we're bothered by the complete disregard for a rule he was very well aware of, and the decption employed to get the tattoo and keep it from us.

My father's house has been badly in need of interior painting since he bought it, but he's never had the time, and the idea of doing it all was a bit overwhelming. He has also wanted to pull up all the carpet and lay down wood floors; for the next couple of weeks, while Alex is on Christmas break, he now has a set of much younger muscles to do all the grunt work. It was the only reasonable thing we could think of; just grounding him wouldn't have an impact, and we're hoping that if he spends what he had hoped was going to be a carefree three weeks working harder than he ever has, he'll understand just how much this bothers us.

The only problem with it is that he's also liable to enjoy the work and the time spent with my dad (and his own; it looks like Ian is going to help since my Dad wants to move a wall.) It may not be the work he does for his grandfather as much as getting to his other obligations that will drive the point home; he still has to help Rachel and Kevin with their TKD (he promised, and this does not absolve him of that) and because he is not technically grounded, he has to find time to pay some attention to his girlfriend, and he has responsibilities in his own home.

If, in the end, he thinks it was all worth it, we'll embrace the tattoo. But he's going to have to suffer for it for a while; those adult decisions he thinks he's entitled to have adult consequences.

He will get Christmas Eve and Christmas day off. We're awful, horrible parents, but we're not mean.