Drawing a Line

Ouch and yikes! Whatever was this lady thinking?

Two seemingly unrelated facts: Fact #1, whenever I inadvertently get ink on my skin--like if I drop a felt tip pen and it grazes my bare leg, or if I clumsily grab a Bic pen  and it makes a mark on my hand, I am on a tear to wash it off. It's bad enough that the once-pristine skin I arrived with as a baby has suffered so much abuse just by living, so I try  to treat it right by applying lotions and creams and salves and ointments as necessary. Fact #2, I fear pain. I also shun it, eschew it, and hide in closets from it, leaving even a nasty splinter just where it is until it works itself out, avoiding all injections unless I will die without them, and certainly only giving blood when it's immoral or illegal not to do so. These two facts combine to make me the opposite of a likely candidate for a tattoo, and may explain why I am stunned, repulsed, horrified and dismayed by their absurd rise in popularity lately.

I asked one young woman whose arms and neck were covered with all sorts of flowers, hearts, dragons, snakes and swords, done in that dark green and blue and magenta and black that look like the onset of gangrene, why she chose to go that route. Her puzzling explanation: She wanted to set herself apart from others, to be special and unique. "Hey lady," I wanted to shout, "did you forget you have a face?" Naturally I didn't--I just paid for my bottle of water and pack of gum--this was in a convenience store, where apparently every employee needs several tattoos just to be hired--and left, then rushed home and sprinkled some Neutrogena Light Sesame Oil onto my arms and legs as a reward for being bare.

Admittedly some young women with tattoos look good now, but when they get to be grannies...oy vay.