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Dalton Meek just laughs. And laughs. And laughs.
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"Duuuude," Meek says, slowly. "Yeah, it was the most painful thing I've ever gone through, dude. I mean, it was wicked ... it feels like knives just slowly (going) down your head."
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So, yeah. Getting a giant Kansas City Chiefs tattoo along the back of your shaven skull?
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It hurt. A lot.
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And yet...
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"I don't regret it," Meek, a 19-year-old Chiefs fan from Lenexa, Kan., said of the head tattoo -- a grinning skull with the Chiefs' famous arrowhead logo on it -- that's raised eyebrows across the internet this week. "And I never will regret it. I will forever be proud to support my team."
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Especially the "forever" part.
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"I was like, 'That's a die-hard Chiefs fan,'" chuckles Dan Kubin, the Kansas City-area tattoo artist who performed the rather distinctive work on Meek's noggin.
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Kubin's done ink inside a belly button. And on the bottom of the foot. And near some of the more, um, intimate regions of the female anatomy.
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But a Chiefs tattoo? On the back of your shaven head? As wacky requests go, that was a new one.
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The tale of the tat dates back to 2011, roughly: As Kubin remembers it,? Meek dropped by the shop to get a Chiefs logo tattooed along his forearm.
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"I did a good job and everything, and he was like, 'OK, thanks, man,'" says Kubin, then playing his trade at Bleeding Heart Tattoo in Lee's Summit, Mo.
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"Then he came in the shop later and said, 'My next tattoo, I want this big skull on the back of my head, with, like, a headdress on it and Kansas City Chiefs colors and a Kansas City Chiefs logo in the center. And I want it so that when I'm at a Chiefs game, in the stands, if I'm standing in front of a Raiders fan, I want him to be intimidated.'"
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Either that, or horrified.
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"I didn't think he was serious," continues Kubin, who these days works at Modified Ways in Blue Springs, Mo. "And so I made him put a deposit down."
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As it turned out, the kid was serious. And, some time later, out came the deposit. Twenty bucks. Boom. Let's do this.
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Meek eventually came by with the $480 for the rest. Kubin finished that bad boy in one marathon, four-hour session.
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"(For) most people, yeah, that would've been a mistake," Meek says. "But for the kind of fan I am, for how much this team means to me, no, it's not a mistake at all. And I will never regret it."
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Dalton says he unveiled the tattoo at Arrowhead Stadium during the Chiefs-Chargers game on Halloween 2011. The hosts won in overtime, 23-20.
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"Oh, man," says Meek, currently a college student at Pittsburg (Kan.) State. "That night is one of the nicest nights of my life."
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But as Meek is also an undergrad by day, he let his hair grow back after the 2011 NFL season.
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Now he only brings the nasty look out for special occasions. Or really, really, really humid days.
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"It's a conversation starter, that's for sure," Meek says.
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A conversation-ender, too.
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Also, it hurt. A lot.
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"Pain," Meek chortles, "is temporary, man."
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You can follow Sean Keeler on Twitter @seankeeler or email him at seanmkeeler@gmail.com
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