[long threadjack, sorry]
Did it bother them that you didn't have a shirt on?
LOL! Hey, I said I was wearing a top! It was a wide-strapped vest top over a capped-sleeve t-shirt. Which is relevant in a moment.
Hopefully, they appreciated you for what's inside, not just what you wore. 
Ahh...nope. Not really. Well. Hmmm.
You see, I was getting dressed in a hurry that morning, and whilst the ensemble I put on was pretty and girly, it had...short sleeves. (Can you see where this is going?
) My tattoos were on display. Oops. I honestly didn't think till I took my jacket off in the pub (it was a posh pub lunch that the grandparents were treating everyone to).
The grandfather
prodded me (hard) on my rainbow star and demanded to know "what the point of those things" was, he thought they were ridiculous. Then the grandmother asked "Is that what I
think it is?" And when I replied with a smile "Yes, they're tattoos", proceeded to go on at length about how horrible and disgusting tattoos were. Now, you don't have to
like tattoos,
but... (And none of mine are of "objectionable content" in themselves, so it's not as if I was sitting there with a nekkid lady on my bicep.)
Then grandfather asks me
if I have any anywhere else.
I was oh, so very tempted to fire back with a big, bright smile, "Well, you'd have to ask IronMaidenBoy [boyfriend] that..." - but I refrained. Barely. I hope you're all proud of me for that.
Then the conversation somehow turned to smoking (oh dear), and father suddenly fires at me: "Do
you smoke?" Startled, I said, "Err, yes...I'm afraid so." And the table went
silent. And somebody
tutted. (Bear in mind I was not sitting there smoking [you can't in public buildings here anyhow], and neither had I gone outside for a cigarette either.)
IronMaidenBoy muttered in my ear at one point, "You look like a barrel of gunpowder with a really short fuse burning down..." Whilst I could have been more civilly assertive, I was caught on the hop a bit, and just thought "Sod it, I'll just go for staying polite and smiling" - and I bean-dipped a LOT by effusively waxing lyrical about how
lovely the food was (which, to be fair, it was). Conversation was pretty stilted anyhow, so it was difficult to chat about
anything.
The kicker? Apparently, according to IronMaidenBoy later, they
liked me. I couldn't resist muttering that I was glad he'd told me, because I wouldn't have known otherwise...
The
second kicker is that my darling has two large tattoos which he has so far kept hidden from the family, and his sister smokes (which the family also don't know about). I was honourable, and did not Drop Them In The Khazi.
Oh, well. I am going to write an enthusiastic thank-you note for the meal and the Christmas present (grandmother had wrapped up what sounds, on shaking, like a box of chocolates for me, which I thought was a lovely gesture, considering I've only been seeing the boy for a month), and keep the charm turned onto gush setting. Coals of fire, and all that.
It is now my mission to prove to them that even brazen tattooed hussies can be polite and gracious.
(I didn't have the face full of metal (only by accident, as I'd taken my piercings out for a re-enactment do recently, and hadn't got round to putting them back in yet), so that'll be another nice surprise for them at some point.)
[/long threadjack, sorry]
