It might seem like a million - but it's not

Woman paid for unusual ad site
July 1, 2005
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- For $10,000, Kari Smith has gone ahead and had her forehead tattooed with the Web address of a gambling site.

Smith, 30, who sold her unusual advertising space on eBay, said the money will give her 11-year-old son a private education, which she believes he needs after falling behind in school.

"For the all the sacrifices everyone makes, this is a very small one," she said. "It's a small sacrifice to build a better future for my son," she said. "To everyone else, it seems like a stupid thing to do. To me, $10,000 is like $1 million. I only live once, and I'm doing it for my son," she said.

Tattoo artist Don Brouse said he and his staff spent nearly seven hours Wednesday trying to talk Smith out of putting "GoldenPalace.com" above her face. When he did go through with it, he kept the inch-tall letters close to her hairline, where bangs or a hat could provide some cover.

Smith's eBay auction attracted more than 27,000 hits and 1,000 watchers. Bidding reached $999.99 before Goldenpalace.com, an Internet gambling company in the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, Canada, met Smith's $10,000 asking price.

To change an old adage a bit - "The road to stupidity is paved with good intentions." There was a picture in the paper also. This young woman is (was) absolutely beautiful. And if you were going to do something so absolutely, totally, incredibly stupid - why not get more money for it? Has she even checked into tuition costs? Having sent one child to private Christian school for one year in our little podunk town, I can tell her - she will be out of money long before he is out of school.