I GOTTA TATTOO--YOU GOTTA TATTO?

Whilst checking my Facebook first thing this morning to see what everyone has been up to since the last time I checked my Facebook last thing last night I noticed several of my Facebook friends posted a link to an MSN article about how common tattoos have become.  And I thought, hey, I got a tattoo.  Hey, I should write about it.  As a bonus, that means I can cross off the first item on my To Do list – Make it all about me.  Yay, for me. 




Couldn't get a shot of my tattoo without my
chins in it, so this one will have to do.
You're welcome.

  Here’s the scoop, as I recall.  Back in the summer of 1997 I decided to be a rebel and get a tattoo.  Actually, I decided to do it on my 40^th birthday in 1996, but it took me 18 months to convince (and by convince I mean feed many margeritas to) a friend to get a tattoo also.  I am a rebel, but the kind of rebel who needs someone else to go first.   It should also be noted that that summer of 1997 was the last time my boys thought I was cool.

My friend and I arrived at the tattoo shop one sunny warm Friday morning, not quite as bold as we had been when we made the appointments.  While we giggled nervously in the waiting room, we flipped through the book of the artists’ work – including a real eye-opening section on body piercings (I think I recognized part of one ex-boyfriend, but that’s a tale for another day) – and selected our designs. 

My courageous cohort went first, and I bravely cheered her on.  About the time she broke into a drenching sweat and her eyeballs went three different directions,  I began weighing the value of our friendship versus the possibility of me bolting out of the building before she caught me.



I stayed, because I like her, because she was much younger and healthier than me, and because she stopped making the Linda Blair noises.  The entire process took about 15 minutes, and looked totally awesome.  Now I had to go through with it. 

I hopped into the chair, bared the spot near my shoulder and waited.  The wonderfully patient artist explained the first 45 seconds or so would be uncomfortable, and you know what, she was right.  I should note that she was far more straightforward and supportive about the discomfort I would experience than my OB/GYN was when I gave birth.  Of course Liz (that’s her name) has actually endured the tattoo process several times, whereas my childless male OB/GYN….well, you do the math.

The process, once I got past that feeling that one billion mosquitoes were biting me, was really not bad at all.  As I regained the feeling in my extremities and checked out Liz’s handiwork, I was already planning my next one (I since decided against that).  I could not wait to show off my new decoration.  But alas, she slapped a big old bandage over it and instructed me not to remove it for 24 hours.  As she explained the healing process, I realized that by the time my tattoo was actually presentable, the novelty would have long since worn off and no one in my social circle would give a shit. 

My boys were duly impressed, but a good number of the more ‘mature’ members of the family expressed reactions ranging from mild disdain to outright disgust.  The most common comments were    ‘What have you done?’ or   ‘Do you realize you have permanently mutilated your body?’  “Yeah’ I would snort rebelliously, ‘like forty-plus years of inhaling M&Ms and Oreos and birthing two big kids has caused no lasting damage.”  Apparently in our culture, dimpled thighs and enough stretchmarks to map out the LA freeway system are considered far more attractive than a small hibiscus near my shoulder. Go figure.  I should note that I have been sporting this flower for 15 years now, and it has not yet, as my smartass baby sister predicted, developed an elaborate root system.  Not yet.  

The summer of 1997 might have been the last time my boys thought I was cool, but I have a feeling that when they slap me into that cheap nursing home up north,  I’ll get new fans.  Some day a nurse’s aide will be dusting the cobwebs off my withered 111 year old body and will chuckle.  She’ll tell her coworkers that I must have been a pretty cool mom to have gotten a flower tattooed on my knee.  I’ll put my teeth in and tell her that the tattoo was a little higher 70 years ago, but yeah, I was cool.