This really hadn't been a good idea, Penny decided as she staggered out the door of the dance club. True it didn't take much convincing on Cheryl and Kim's part to get her to come drinking and dancing with them on this warm Friday evening. Just a little guilt tripping about how the three drinking buddy/co-workers from the Cheesecake Factory Girl's Nights had been few and far between since she'd started hanging out with 'those nerds'. Besides she was long overdue for her usual post breakup M.O. of thirty-six hours of meaningless sex, right? Strangely enough though none of the myriad of guys who'd bought her drinks or 'accidently' bumped against her as she danced with her girlfriends tonight had struck her fancy. And even though Leonard apparently had moved on, since he'd hooked up with Sheldon's friend Dr. Slut Bunny, Penny couldn't shake the regret she felt using Leonard after that disasterous date with Zach. Uuuggghhh!
Penny quickly tapped out and sent a text to Cheryl and Kim explaining she wasn't feeling well and would catch a cab home. Just as she stepped to the curb, raising her arm to flag down said cab, she noticed the red neon 'Samoa Sam's TATTOO' sign in the window of the shop across the street. Hmm, she thought, maybe a new tat' would get her out of this funk. Afterall getting her Chinese courage symbol (Penny refused to believe it was soup) back in Omaha had helped steel her resolve when she'd made the scary decision to come out here chasing her dream.
A small bell jingled as Penny entered the shop and she squinted as the bright lights assaulted her eyes. From behind a curtain at the back of the shop a deep masculine voice shouted,"Be right witch ya!" in a Polynesian accent. Penny wandered around the shop looking at the various stencils hanging on the walls. What should she get? A snake's head or scary skull? No that was a little too Goth for her taste. A broken heart? No she was trying to get out of this funk remember not wallow in it.
Then she noticed a group of Sesame Street character stencils in the corner. Ernie spoke to her but she really didn't want a permanent reminder of her falling out with her childhood friend Rosie. Maybe Oscar the Grouch? No that was too much who she'd been in the weeks since she'd broken up with Leonard. Big Bird? No he was too much like Sheldon.
A furry blue figure caught her eye. Cookie Monster! That was the nickname her Grams had given her as a little girl baking cookies in Grams quaint old kitchen. While her parents had begrudgingly given their consent to her move to the Coast, Grams had been overwhelming in her encouragement. Telling her she was too feisty a filly to be stuck in Nowhere, Nebraska for the rest of her life. Grams even went halvesies with her when the money she'd saved carhopping at the Tastee Freeze those last three summers back home wouldn't buy a car Grams thought worthy of her. Since she was going to be a California Girl like the Beach Boys sang about she needed a convertible Grams reckoned.
Thus it was that the last time Penny had seen her Grams they'd been standing beside her VW Cabriolet, loaded down with all her important possessions (Care Bears and shoes), making their farewells. "Go let the world see your star shine Cookie!" Grams told her with tears in her eyes during one of her world famous (at least in Penny's world) bearhugs.
"Know what ya want, little lady?" came the voice from before, pulling Penny out of her thoughts.
Turning Penny saw the biggest man she'd ever seen, dressed in black jeans and white wife beater covering a full body tattoo, sporting a ponytail that reached the small of his back.
"Yup" came Penny's p popping reply. "C' Monster here."
"Good choice," said the Samoan, rolling his eyes. Grabbing the stencil from the wall, he turned and motioned for her to follow him to his tattooing station. "Where would ya like it?"
Climbing onto his table face down Penny flipped up her skirt with a slight blush, exposing her T-back panties. Slapping her left butt cheek she exclaimed,"Right here!"
As the tattooist prepped her cheek and transfered the stencil, Penny's thoughts drifted back to pleasant childhood memories of her Grams.
Maybe going out tonight really had been a good idea.