Rosie’s Prison Tattoos

Mitch: What have you got on you? I can’t wash it off. It’s like it’s under your fur.

Rosie: Forget about it. It’s permanent.

Mitch: Sure seems that way. Maybe if I use more soap.

Rosie: No, really,  it’s not dirt.

Mitch: What is it? A birthmark?

Rosie: It’s a tattoo.

Mitch: A tattoo???!!! When did you get a tattoo?

Rosie: When I was at Folsom.

Mitch: What on earth–

Rosie: It’s a part of my life I like to keep private. It’s…not easy to talk about.

Mitch: Yeah, right, I forgot how reluctant you are to talk about yourself.

Rosie: I’ll ignore your sarcasm. The fact is, when I was a puppy, I was part of the ‘Puppies for Prisoners’ program. They give puppies to convicts for obedience training and socializing, then after a year, we were supposed to be trained as service dogs.

Mitch: So what happened?

Rosie: I shanked a guy in the yard.

Mitch: You did not shank a guy!

Rosie: Let’s just say I was involved in a prison altercation. After that, I was asked to leave the program–but not before I got some body art, administered by my best friend, ‘Big Sal.’

Mitch: Big Sal?

Rosie: She was a sassy black lab who pretty much ran the puppy program. She was also something of a tattoo artist. If my fur was shaved, you’d see tats on my neck, all four legs, my chest–

Mitch: Wait a minute. You mean that under all this fur, there are prison tattoos?

Rosie: A spider web means you served time; a teardrop means you killed a guy–

Mitch: I really don’t need to know all this.

Rosie: Look at this lean, muscular body. These are the kinds of muscles you only get in prison.

Mitch: This explains so much…

Rosie: They tried to get me to join a prison gang, but I told them, “hey, I’m training to be a ‘leader dog’ not a ‘follower dog.'”

Mitch: I really need a beer.

Rosie: I got a great recipe for prison hooch.

Mitch: Make that two beers.

Rosie: I just need a sock and some moldy fruit…