Flip Flops, Tank Tops and Tattoos

Summer is in full swing and everywhere you look folks are sporting flip flops, tank tops and tattoos. Yes tattoos, that ubiquitous piece of art that people display on just about everywhere their bodies can afford, always a little more visible during the summer months.

Once they were only seen blazon on the biceps of sailors and Hells Angels! Now the tattoo can be seen on almost everyone young and old.  My philosophy is: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!

I was waiting on line in the deli department at the Stop and Shop when I spied a let's say more mature woman with a tattoo on her left arm. It must have been some ode to wine for there appeared to be a cluster of grapes and a wine glass. I can see that in another 10 years from now her grapes would be turning into raisins and the meaning would be lost! "What. . . a toast to raisins?”

Then there are all the 20 year olds with their tattoos in racy spots on their young taut skin. Those tattoos may look hot now but how are you going to explain to your grandchildren when you are 75 about why Grandma has a tramp stamp while sporting medical support hose and orthopedic shoes!

My favorites are the guys and gals who have their arms tattooed from the shoulder down to their wrists. It appears that they have donned some kind of Technicolor body suit! Forget deciding you don’t like the design and want to remove it. There is definitely no going back once you committed to something like that!

Now I don’t want to sound like an old kill joy. I am not opposed to the casual small butterfly or skull and crossbones placed in a discreet area.  A heart with Mom written in the middle of it for the sentimental types is fine. I just feel that we have gone overboard on the art of inking ones self. Correct me if I am wrong but is there anything nastier than a neck tattoo that says “true love never bites.” Some how I don’t think that is going to help you get the job in the corner office, but I could be wrong.

For now I am content in being part of the soon to be minority with no tattoos what so ever. For a gal who changes her outfit five times before she finds something she would like to wear to sit in a dark movie theater on a Saturday night, I think that is a wise decision.