I am thinking about getting a tattoo. I really missed the boat on the whole tattoo craze. When I was a young girl, the only people I saw with tattoos were released convicts and ex-military men. Usually their tattoo stories included amazing amounts of alcohol and waking up with a tiger inked on their arm. Oh yeah, there was also that lady in the Barnum and Bailey Circus who had tattoos all over her body. That was the extent of my exposure to tattoos.
Now tattoos are so commonplace. Nearly everyone I know has some sort of artwork indelibly inked somewhere on their skin. There are no socio-economic barriers when it comes to tattooing. The rich, the poor and the middle class are all into it. Men and women indulge equally. Every young actor in Hollywood has some kind of body art.
As for the women, I can understand that it might be sexy to have a little butterfly on your ankle or a rosebud on one breast. I don’t understand why anyone would want to have pictures up and down their bodies. What happens when you wear a spaghetti-strapped dress in the summer and it all shows? I find accessorizing challenging enough without having to consider if the dragon on my shoulder or the heart n’ dagger on my arm would conflict with the necklace I want to wear.
I just wondered why a big, strong guy would have a picture of a meatball on top of a smiley face on his arm...
I think that some of the flower tattoos I have seen on young women are really gorgeous. Elegant lilies, orchids and gardenias that fancifully trail up athletically- toned arms can look amazing. It’s a very provocative look... now.
But here’s my worry. I remember when I was a kid we had a neighbor named Carl, a retired Navy man. I was always intrigued by the faded, crinkly image on his forearm. My mother would jab me in his presence if she caught me staring at it. I was just a curious child that wondered why a big strong guy would have a picture of a meatball on top of a smiley face on his arm. You really couldn’t tell what it was and no one ever asked. It wasn’t until I was grown and Carl was dead that I knew the truth about his mysterious tattoo. In a collage of old photos at his funeral, there was a shot of him in a t-shirt. I immediately zoomed in on his red rose and anchor tattoo. Not a meatball and smiley face at all! That got me thinking.
What is going to happen to all these young people that are tatted up when they get older? The first problem is that they are probably not in love with the images they chose decades earlier. I don’t have the same boyfriend or furniture I had when I was in my twenties. Neither would fit my lifestyle now. The great thing is, neither of those things were PERMANENT.
A skull with fire coming out of the orifices might have been cool when you were 22, but what is it going to look like when you are 62? How will this tattoo affect your career? The last time I asked, you have to cover up your tats if you work at Starbucks. Imagine what the rules are in corporate America.
There are lots of you who are reading this who are thinking that I am a stuffy old bitch who doesn’t understand the deep meaning and commitment that comes with tattoos. The real truth is that I am just not enough of a visionary to ink a storyboard on my body that is nearly irremovable. I can stay in the shoe department for hours and cannot decide which pair to buy. How could I ever to trust myself to choose motifs to tattoo indelibly all over myself that will stay with me for a lifetime? And by the way, you are wrong about me being a stuffy old bitch. I am the stuffy old bitch.
Bunches of random tattoos on my body is just not an option for this girl. Believe me, I have the perfect body for it and am probably a tattoo artists dream. Acres of undeveloped pale skin... my ass alone is mural material. Besides that, I am not a big fan of pain, and I have the attention span of a 5 year old. I can barely sit in the salon chair for 30 minutes to get my hair cut without getting antsy.
But... the fact remains that I still want to have ONE perfect little tattoo. I am willing to put up with a modicum of pain to have something inked that is special just for me. But what?
My wrinkles are pretty much in place at this point and I think a good tattoo artist can make them work with the design. I don’t want anything trashy. It would hurt my feelings if anyone ever called it my “tramp stamp”.
I have been thinking about my tattoo a lot. I considered flowers, a bumble bee, my kid’s names... even a heart with the name of my own true love. The problem with the last one is that I would have to just do the heart and leave the middle part blank until my own true love shows up. A bluebird of happiness was even a thought.
C’mon Fifi! Think! What would be the quintessential tattoo for a smart, sophisticated older woman who is in love with experiencing the world? Then it came to me. No butterflies or flowers for me. I’ve got it!
I am going to have my younger sister’s phone number tattooed on me somewhere. That way, no matter what I do or where I go, I am guaranteed that if I get lost or forget where I am or who I am, I will be safely returned to my family. I can also hold my head up high as part of the cool tattoo culture.
And the best part, the next time somebody asks if I have a tattoo, I can confidently flip my hair to the wind and say “of course!”
