"Look Boss, Da Plane! Da Plane!" (aka Tattoos)

***Beware, the following blog post is sheerly one girl's opinion***

I was at a water park one day about 15 years ago, and I was waiting in line to go down a tall waterslide. In front of me was a young guy probably all of 18 or 19 and he had a HUGE ugly tattoo on his back of a cartoon baby sucking a pacifier. I stared in complete revulsion/facination at his back the entire time I was in line, thinking to myself...I wonder how he's going to feel about this STUPID baby on his back when he's 40.

I'm probably going to be in the minority here, but as you can tell by the above paragraph, I don't like tattoos!  I dislike them to the point that I have chosen to not date one or two men because they had some particularly hideous ones in very visible places. (Does a guy really think I'm not going to be repulsed by the anatomically correct and extremely explicit naked woman doing the splits on their arm?) I have dated a man or two that had more discreet ones and I tried in vain to pretend the tattoo didn't exist.  Didn't work.

I am friends with many men and women who have tattoos of various sizes, natures, colors, patterns, etc and each tattoo has a personal story and reason attached.  I can respect that, and I laud their right to have them. (I do have to wonder what personal statement someone attaches to a comic book character on their shoulder) But I still don't find even the personally designed ones visually appealing.  I equate them with discovering that someone indelibly drew with permanent markers on the Venus De Milo or spraypainted graffiti on the Mona Lisa.

Admittedly there are different levels of tattoos.  Its not the same to see some guy with a greying, stretched out prison style tattoo of a naked woman in a provocative pose vs. someone who has a very intricately designed picture that has some asthetic or personal meaning to them.  Of course in the past decade or two, the ever popular "barbed wire" bicep band or tribal cuff has been the tattoo of choice for many men, the genie bottle on the low back for women.  Ok, those aren't repulsive, but they sure show a lack of originality!  But at least they can be covered with most clothing. 

On the other hand, we have those who apparently got quite addicted to getting tattoo's and now have a "sleeve"(s).  It would be really hard to become a white collar professional with a sleeve, and undoubtably when the person got the sleeve done, they probably never in a million years expected to want to become that professional.  But things change as life goes on...

A few years back, friends around me right and left were getting tattoo's done and I thought to myself...maybe I exaggerate how I feel about tattoos, maybe I would feel different if it was a design I really liked and created myself.  So I experiemented.  Found some temporary tattoo paint that wouldn't come off til removed with a special chemical.  I painted a very pretty rose and thorns wreath around my ankle.  Three weeks later I was ready to saw my foot off above the ankle if that removal chemical didnt work, I was so desperate to have it gone.  I hated it, I was so bored with the design I wanted to scream.  I think I will take that as a sign that I should never ever ever ever ever get a tattoo.