Okay, I'm just going to say this. I'm not a tattoo person; I find them even hard to look at. And the only extra holes I have, despite what you may have heard about my head, are the two in my ears for earrings. One in each ear. I hope I am not offending you. Please don't hold it against me. Really, don't. Don't touch me with them. I think it's creepy. Sorry, sorry, sorry! I'm trying to develop an open mind, but, you know, I'm really old and I haven't gotten used to it yet. I'm working on it.
I know I'm in the minority. In fact, sometimes, like at the baseball field when our granddaughter, Hayley, was playing ball in a municipal league, I'm pretty sure her mom and I were the only two women in the ball park without a tattoo of some kind. Most were on view when I was sitting in the bleachers and the women in front of me had jeans that rode down and shirts that rode up and, perhaps they were from plumbers' families, I'm not sure, but lots of artwork was on display whether I wanted to view it or not.
I know there are some that are tastefully done, like little flowers and butterflies and things. In fact, I have even been offered to have my own done at no cost to me. When I was having reconstructive surgery after my mastectomy last year the plastic surgeon had a tattoo included in the deal but I declined.
So what happens if you get a little rosebud when you are twenty-two and weigh a hundred pounds, but then you get married, have a couple of kids, gain weight with each pregnancy, a couple of pounds each holiday season, it just creeps up, ya' know, and then what? Does your tiny hybrid tea rosebud turn into a floribunda Queen Elizabeth Rose known for it's four or five inch blooms? Or Tweety Bird turn into Big Bird? I worry about these things.
There used to be a Piercing Parlor across the street from the bank I go to. I could see the phone number in big letters on their window while I was waiting in the drive-through line. It was 251-OUCH. At least they believed in truth-in-advertising, and, as a matter of fact, there is a Christian Science Reading Room in that spot now so perhaps their business didn't survive their honesty. But, really, why would you put yourself through that?
When I was about twenty my sister talked me into getting my ears pierced. She and her sister-in-law had pierced each others' ears with a needle, a cube of ice, and a potato held behind their ears. When I finally got up the courage I decided to do it the right way, of course. I went to the doctor and had my ears pierced professionally, in sanitary conditions. Did my sister have problems? Of course not. I, on the other hand, got infections in both earlobes. They got inflamed and swelled up until it looked like I had apricots hanging off the sides of my head, and when I got one of the earrings caught in the blanket in the middle of the night and Dennis turned over and took the blanket (and my earlobe!) with him, I screamed like a banshee and wound up having to have sutures in my ears for a month. So two is all I have ever wanted.
That was the good ol' days when the only men who wore earrings were pirates and the most tattoos you saw were "Mom" on sailors, or on bikers who wanted you to know they were born to raise.....um, mischief. Anyway, then came the nineties and suddenly some regular guys were wearing earrings and our son, Jake, when he was a teenager wanted to be one of them.
We resisted. "Not while you are under our roof,." we said. "Not while we're paying the bills," we said. "No son of ours!" we said. And then we were teaching a Parenting Class at our church and at the end of the course we invited our son, Josh, his new wife, Jerilyn, and Jake, who was nineteen and in college, to sit in and let the people ask them questions about how we had parented them. Somehow, the discussion got on the earring thing. Even though I rarely express my opinion, as you well know, I said "Admit it. It's just a peer pressure thing."
"No," Jake said. "I haven't gotten an earring out of respect for you and Dad as my parents. If it was just a peer pressure thing, I'd be getting a tattoo."
"Get the earring," I told him. And he did, the very next day.
Somewhere along the way he stopped wearing the earring, the hole closed up and his seven and ten year old daughters were shocked...shocked! when they heard that their dad had an earring when he was younger. The tattoo never happened though, and I'm glad. They don't just go away like a piercing if you change your mind.
I don't think he would have gotten one that said "Mom" on it anyway.
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