TEMPE, AZ—In the 10 years that he has operated Edge Tattoo Parlor in downtown Tempe, Tattoo Artist Chummy McGregor has met with his share of clients searching to have their pitiable tattoos covered up. Many looking for cover-ups are heartbroken souls hoping to erase hastily penned names of loved ones, who may have done them wrong, and others are hoping for creative solutions to botched tattoos created by unskilled individuals.

Last week Michelle Johnson, a sophomore at nearby Arizona State University, sought out McGregor’s expertise in cover-up work to hide an unwanted life-sized image of actor Kevin Costner’s head. But now Johnson is claiming that McGregor botched the job even more. Instead of integrating the tattoo into an idyllic image of a dolphin, which she claims was the previous agreement, McGregor altered the Costner image into a leering head of actor Nick Nolte.

“It’s one thing to make a spelling mistake—horribly embarrassing, but it does happen,” McGregor said. “But how do you mix up Nick Nolte with a dolphin?”

McGregor said that he feels that Johnson is now regretting her decision—like so many people who receive tattoos when they’re drunk—and is trying to pin the blame on him for her rash idea. “She was pretty fucked up, and it’s not my policy to work on drunks, but she’d already had some work done, so I thought she knew what she was doing.”

Johnson admits she had a few Long Island iced teas in a local lounge. She added that she was not more drunk than usual and certainly not drunk enough to be inspired suddenly to have Nick Nolte’s head tattooed onto her body. “I know that level of hammered, and I know I wasn’t there yet,” Johnson claimed.

Reeling from a recent realization that her previous tattoo of Kevin Costner was going to interfere with her love life, Johnson fears the Nick Nolte cover-up, if not repaired in some way swiftly, could completely destroy her chance with potential mate Clyde Barker.

Barker already denounced the Costner tattoo, claiming that taking Johnson from behind was like doing “an armless midget Costner with two ass cheeks for a chest.”

“I don’t imagine Clyde being more open to making it with an armless midget Nick Nolte with two ass cheeks for a chest,” Johnson said. “I just think that tattoo guy was playing a really nasty joke on me.”

Presently, Barker has not seen the new addition to potential mate Johnson’s lower back, nor is Johnson planning on initiating intimate activities with him until the supposed error is repaired. “There’s another guy downtown who says he can easily make Nick Nolte into a rose,” Johnson said. “I love roses, you know, and I’m sure Clyde does too.”

“She may have said ‘dolphin’ to someone at sometime, but it sure the fuck wasn’t the night when she staggered into my parlor at 10 p.m. and said ‘Nick Nolte,’” McGregor said. “If she keeps bad mouthing me and my parlor, I’ll show her what a bad cover-up can be the next time she stumbles into my shop.”