So, my friend Phil (otherwise known as CM Punk) and I finally managed to be in the same place at the same time long enough to get tattooed together. Normally I don’t really post about new tattoos or stuff I do with my friends (unless is baking, bake sales, pastry markets…) on my blog, but people seem fascinated by this particular tattoo. After literally hundreds of Tweets, Tumblr posts and emails I decided to address all the “wtf” around the tattoo here. This way, only my blog readers what it’s all about… at least until wrestling forums get a hold of it (hi, wrestling forums!)

OK, so prepare yourself for a story you will barely find interesting…

Punk, Matt, and one dead fish.

A little over 10 years ago, Punk and I shared an apartment with two other people (hi Sean and Todd!) in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. He was working the independent circuit along with Colt Cabana (who I accidentally almost killed with kiwi lotion once, but that’s another story) and I was attending college and working in a local bakery. He was the only omnivore in a house full of vegans, so his Canadian bacon binges were often met with scrunched-up noses, but nothing got the three of us as riled up as when Punk made a hot bowl of soup, and then dumped an entire can of tuna into it. Take a minute and just think about what the would smell like. A zombie hooker’s panties, perhaps? Yes, it did smell exactly like that. So that’s story number one.

Story number two: This is long before you could just buy tofu ice cream at the corner store, and before there were 5 vegan restaurants within a two mile radius from my house, not that I could have afforded to eat in restaurants back then anyway. So, as an ambitious young vegan who happened to be a former sea food lover, I thought it would be fun to make vegan fish. (Yes, that’s a thing. Look it up.) I spent a lot of money and a lot of time making this vegan fish and I was so psyched to eat it even though my two vegan roommates made fun of me. For the record, Punk also made fun of me, but he redeems himself in this next bit. I sat down to try my masterpiece and, surprise! It was fucking disgusting. I was so bummed I just started to bawl right there at the table. Big, tough soon-to-be-pro-wrestler Punk felt so bad for me he took the plate and ate every bite.

My swollen, hurty leg.

So, about a week ago when we briefly exchanged tweets about getting bro-tats we started texting ideas back and forth. We both texted “fish” to each other at the same time. Eventually we decided it should be a mostly-eaten fish with a stupid look on its face, and of course, an X on his fin because out of everyone we used to know who was straight edge back in our tuna soup and vegan fish days, we’re the only ones left. So this past Tuesday we commemorated a long and weird friendship with a couple of weird tattoos.

So there you go. Are you happy you sat through all that? Thanks to Punk for always being there to cheer me up, to my husband for not caring that I have a dead fish tattooed on my leg and to everyone who read this whole boring story.