tousled thoughts and happenings: Let the Wild Rumpus Start

The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind

and another

his mother called him “WILD THING!”

and Max said “I’LL EAT YOU UP!”

so he was sent to bed without eating anything.

That very night in Max’s room a forest grew

and grew and grew until his ceiling hung with vines

and the walls became the world all around

and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max

and he sailed off through night and day

and in and out of weeks

and almost over a year

to where the wild things are.

And when he came to the place where the wild things are

they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

till Max said “BE STILL!”

and tamed with the magic trick

of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once

and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all

and made him king of all wild things.

“And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”

“Now stop!” Max said and sent the wild things off to bed without their supper.

And Max the king of all wild things was lonely and wanted to be where

someone loved him best of all. Then all around from far away across the world

he smelled good things to eat

so he gave up being king of where the wild things are.

But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go we’ll eat you up-we love you so!”

And Max said, “No!”

The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws

but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye

and sailed back over a year

and in and out of weeks

and through a day

and into the night of his very own room

where he found his supper waiting for him

and it was still hot.

Where the Wild Things Are

October 2012

After years of going back and forth of wanting a tattoo, and living under my mom's roof with her negative opinion toward tattoos, Greg decided that today was the day and he hopped in the car and drove to Athens to get a tattoo with his college roommates. Our friend Lucy Williams wrote out his favorite quote from Maurice Sendak's children's book "Where the Wild Things Are." When Max goes on his own adventure and becomes the king of the wild things, he cries "Let the wild rumpus start!" And so Max's adventure away from home begins. When he tells the wild things to go to sleep, he finds himself wanting to be with the people that love him most of all. At the end of the story, Max comes home to his family with dinner still hot on the table for him. For Greg, getting this tattoo symbolized that no matter what adventures he goes on, or what wild rumpuses he gets into, he always has my mom and me to come back to.

November 2012

Greg home for Thanksgiving. No peep about a tattoo!

December 2012

Greg home for an entire month during Christmas. He wore socks ALL the time! Even Christmas morning sitting around the Christmas tree opening presents and laughing together. I feel so betrayed.

January & Febrary 2013

He kept his secret well. Even some of my very best friends covered for him. There was one instance when I showed up to Milledgeville unexpectedly to visit him, and our friend Spencer gave him a pair of socks seconds before I arrived.

March 16th, 2013 4:00pm

Greg and I were in the car in Milledgeville and he said "If I tell you something, you have to swear you won't get mad at me and you won't tell mom." Now when your 19-year-old brother says that to you, all of the worst things start coming to mind. Needless to say, I was relieved when he showed me the tattoo. Then when he told me the story I was a puddle of emotion because if you know me you know I love Greg more than any other human in the world. Later that evening we said our goodbyes and I headed back to Atlanta and I swore I would never tell mom.

March 16th, 2013 9:00pm

I TOLD MY MOM!!!! I couldn't keep it in, I was so excited! Greg loves us so much he permanently inked his body with something so meaningful and sweet, of course I had to tell my mom so we could cry together about how cool Greg is. She wasn't as excited to hear the news as I was. Her feelings were hurt that her precious baby didn't tell her the truth (I think this is a mom thing). So I gave her 24 hours to be sad... THEN the planning began.

I proposed the idea that we punk Greg for his birthday by getting the same tattoos and getting Lucy to draw it for us too. Surprisingly, my mom's stance on tattoos slowly began shifting. Lucy & I met up at church the next week for her to draw some sketches for us. Within a few days, my mom and I made a very permanent decision to 1. be the coolest family ever 2. prepare for the most epic prank 3. get greg the best birthday present

March 27th, 2013

I called my mom at work and said, "Hey today is the day! Let's go to Psycho Tattoo when you leave the church!" Then... it.... happened!! And my mom managed to become BFFs with everyone that works at Pyscho Tattoo.

Ann & me gettin' inked up!

March 27th - April 14th, 2013

Now the hard part... keeping a secret!! How did he do this for 6 months!

April 14th, 2013

We decided the way we wanted to reveal our tattoos was to first make Greg squirm and think he got found out and also to make sure that his friends were there. A lot of people knew we knew, and some friends knew we had tattoos and they knew Greg didn't know we knew!

Greg hates being the center of attention, so naturally I invited a group of his friends over to watch him open presents and eat cake. He was so frustrated with me. Until we got to his final present...

My mom and I got him a new copy of the "Where the Wild Things Are" DVD and in the package, we included the sketches of Lucy's drawings for the tattoos. He knew he was found out. At this point his hands were shaking and he later told us he knew he wouldn't get in too much trouble in the moment because all of his friends were around.

I told him that the good news is he won't be going down alone because I decided to get the same tattoo.