Kentucky tattoo artist's generosity helps dyslexic teen learn to drive

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) -- It was hard for Amanda Morris to imagine walking into a tattoo shop with her 16-year-old daughter, Lexie.

"I did say they had to be 18 or older to get one," Amanda said.

"She was very firm on that," Lexie added.

The Kentucky mom loosened her stance, not because she has a persistent teenager, but because of what her daughter has struggled with since early in her life.

"By the time 3rd grade got here, she was behind," Amanda explained. "She was reading at a first grade level. She wasn't able still to write her name the right way."

"I was just more confused why everybody else around me understood everything, and I didn't," Lexie said.

Lexie was diagnosed with dyslexia.

"She gets things backwards," Amanda explained.

Being on the verge of driving on her own only complicated things.

"I would be like 'turn right,' and she seriously just looked straight and was like 'mom which way?'" Amanda remembered.

"Everybody tells you, put your hands in an L, but my brain doesn't work that way," Lexie explained. "So when I look at my hands, and 'you say which one is an L?' They both make Ls in my head."

Amanda did what moms do, she found a road her daughter could take. She called and messaged, asking how much it would cost to get an L tattooed on her daughter's left hand, and an R on her right.

Then, she found Scotty Thompson at Ambitious Ink in Frankfort.

"She explained that she had called around and that she had 11 kids, and that it just didn't make sense to pay that much for that, but it was important to her," Thompson recalled.

"He's like, 'well how about free?'" Amanda said.

"It's no big deal," Thompson said about the generosity.

It was actually quite the opposite.

"It has significantly helped me a lot, especially when I'm driving, and doing directions by myself," Lexie said.

She's doing so well she just passed her driver's test, and got her first car, a green Dodge Neon.

"To meet someone with a heart as big as Scotty's really meant a lot to us," Amanda said.

"It's beautiful," said Thompson. "I'm so happy. I could cry honestly. I'm glad it happened the way it did."

The kind-hearted tattoo artist designed a future behind the wheel for a tough teen who's finding the route to confidence.

"It's nothing that I even think about worrying about anymore," Lexie said.