A news story I just read said young people are starting to have their tattoos removed and their piercings spackled over (or however it is doctors fix such things.)
“Many are seeking to reverse the impulsive, perhaps keg-fueled decisions of their not-quite-lost youths,” the article said. “That tongue piercing, that bone through the nose, that conspicuously placed tattoo you got in college may not go over so big now in a job interview, or in the board room. It’s time to conform to the real world.”
Couldn’t agree more. Not that I’m a fan of conformity or anything. I’m not. I strongly prefer people who stand out from the crowd, even though I’m not one of them.
In fact, that standing out thing is one of my main reasons for objecting to most tattoos and nearly all piercings. According to a survey I just made up, 99 percent of everyone under the age of 35 has one – or a dozen – so how is that standing out? Doing the same thing as everybody else is the very definition of conformity, is it not? The millennial or Gen Xer who is truly a rebel, therefore, is the one who cuts against the grain and doesn’t get piercings or tattoos.
Or so I told my kids.
Of course I have other extremely practical objections to tats and piercings.
For one, tattoos usually turn blue and fuzzy, like smudged newspaper comics, so much so it’s often hard to tell what they’re supposed to be. For instance, I looked at one recently on the forearm of a young friend and I couldn’t tell if it was a tattoo or a particularly noticeable vein.
“It’s a snake!” he huffed indignantly.
OK, OK, it’s a snake. (Still looked more like a vein, though.)
Also, I can’t imagine a piece of art that I’d want to look at every day of my life. I love Monet’s flower paintings, for instance, but I’d get tired of one on my bicep, much less something stitched into me down at Jimmy’s World of Tats. Viva la difference, I guess.
As for piercings, most of them seem ridiculous and vaguely annoying to someone of my generation, so much so that I had the following discussion once with a waitress wearing a tongue stud.
“Young lady,” I said, gesturing at her, “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but that looks like it would hurt like hell. Does it?”
“No (clickety-clack), it doesn’t (clickety-clack) hurth mush at all!” she replied. “Can I get you thum more coffee (clickety-clickety-click)?”
By the way, if nothing else, can we at least agree that waiters and waitresses ought to remove nose, cheek, lip, gum, tongue, eyebrow, eyeball, forehead, neck, and uvula piercings before coming to work? I’m trying to eat here.
Ear gauges are the ones that really baffle me, though. Why in the world would anyone want to bore gigantic holes through their earlobes? Whenever I see those I have to resist the urge to wad up some paper and shoot free throws.
I can’t be the only one who’s ever wanted to do that, right?
My old school advice to young people who want to get gauges is this: Just don’t. They’re only cool when you’re young. But when you’re older, people will simply say “There goes ‘ol floppy ears.”
And for those of you who already have them, well, do like the article says and see your doctor. Or you’re welcome to borrow some spackle.
I’ve got a tube around here somewhere.
Image credit: Bryan Ledgard
Could not agree with you more!!!
Thanks, Andy, for saying what a lot of us think but don’t have the spirit to speak out.
Does that guy think he’s a snake or what??
Having spent a considerable amount of time helping family members in nursing homes, I think it would be great to have these goons remove them. I can picture nothing worse than a nursing home full of wrinkled and puckered skin with all sorts of deformed tats on body parts.
On the other hand maybe it could be quite amusing – trying to see what “new” designs that would be formed by the aging process!
No, (take that back) I still don’t want to see it!
My wife works at a business that didn’t allow facial hair or piercings or visible tattoos. They still don’t allow facial hair but tattoos and piercings are ok. Can’t figure that one out?
From my old-man viewpoint, tattoos and piercings are utterly odd and preposterously ugly. Completely un-American. Impossible for me to understand or sympathize with. But, we must be tolerant. We need to tolerate Trump voters, too, even though the Trumpers make the USA ugly, rather than just disfiguring themselves.
Do you see those little silver rings some people put in the lower middles of their noses? Little loops between their nostrils? Yuk!!!!! Why in the world do they do that?!!! What are those things? Booger-catchers?? Ugly-makers??
I have two (over 55 year old) small tattoos that are visible when wearing short sleeved shirts or when my sleeves are rolled up. Kids in school often ask me “What do your tattoos say?” My usual reply, “When I was 19 I wasn’t too bright.”
I have always questioned why anyone would purposely disfigure their body. You get enough scars, wrinkles and ugliness as you age naturally. To add to it is insanity.
I always tell my granddaughters that my wrinkles are my “life’s tattoos”.