Friday, July 28, 2006

Tattoo you

Em is 15, and her best friend just turned 18. To celebrate, the friend got her belly button pierced and is going to be getting a tattoo this Saturday. I will be driving Em over so she can hold friend's hand during the inking. Friend's mother is not happy. Em hasn't tried to talk friend out of it, but she thinks she may be making a mistake. My daughter is so damn practical.

I am not anti-tattoo. I have a tattoo. I might even post a picture of it someday. But i got my tattoo when i was 44, and Em was 12. I hid it from her for a while, but eventually she saw it. (It's on my lower right belly.) She was kind of intrigued so i told her that when she is 30, she can do whatever she wants, but that much before that she should be very very careful, as a tattoo is forever (pretty much). I asked her what she would have gotten as a tattoo if i had let her get one at 10. She thought about it for a minute and answered with a sheepish look that she would have gotten Pikachu. (Pokemon!) That really made the point about how tastes change throughout life.

I used to work i a department with about 17 other people, and of the 9 of us who had tattoos, 7 had some regrets about it, the design, or the placement, or getting one at all.

Do you have any regrets?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I got one when I was barely 19. Mostly to annoy my parents. Bad reason to get a tattoo.
But it's not so bad, it's on my upper arm and is a rose. So common.

meno said...

I've heard that the three most common tattoos for women are a rose, a dolphin and a butterfly.

Thanks for stopping by.

Andrea Frazer said...

I got a tatoo for my first husband as a surprise. He liked the Lakers, so I got a purple and yellow heart on my right ass cheek. We broke up 2 years later and I wouldn't wear a thong for all the tea in China. My current husband (and hopefully my last!) doesn't even notice it. Ever. Not that we don't get naked in front of each other. It's more that it's this dumb little trinket that has no meaning. So..... I wish I had waited, too.