TATTOO YOU (AND ME)
This week, I’m ruminating about epidermal wallpaper.
I had one of those aha! moments a few years ago when dining on the rooftop of a local eatery which uses that most appetizing word, “factory” in its name. A young family was eating a couple of tables away and I couldn’t help but notice the tattoos on what I assumed to be the mother. It was one of those gloriously sunny days and she was wearing a top with spaghetti straps and on her left shoulder were tattoos of two babies with letters and several numbers underneath. As I watched two young children chatter at the table, I realized they must be the older version of the babies in question, and the letters were their names and the numbers were their birth dates.
On the woman’s right shoulder was what I supposed to the face of the father of the babies etched in her skin, but seeing him in the flesh was a bit of a shock. For one thing, he looked much less attractive and paler, had lost quite a bit of muscle mass, and his hair had gone flatt. The letters underneath must have been his name, but the numbers underneath intrigued me. Possibly an anniversary date? Then I noticed the multiple bottles of Corona and Bud Light at the table and that’s when I realized the genius of this stranger.
She could go home bliltzed out of her skull and when she awoke the next morning with two cherubs swimming into view holding a cup of orange juice and toast in their hands, she could glance at her left shoulder and say, “Thank you Destiny and DeShawn, but Mommy really needs some tomato juice and celery. Can you get that for me please?”
As the man sleeping next to her would awaken, she would surreptitiously peep at her right shoulder and lovingly say, “G’morning Jamal. Thank you for a wonderful Mother’s Day yesterday. I don’t recall a thing. It was perfect.”
“For the last time, my name is Thad. When will you change your tattoo?” he would touchingly reply.
My blissful reverie was rudely interrupted when my hubby reminded me that we had a meeting with the mortgage company about a house we were buying, and asked if I’d been able to find all the required documents. And that’s when it hit me. I don’t know how many times I’ve needed to know my financial history, previous addresses and phone numbers, and past creditors, and didn’t have all the information in my files since I’ve moved over a dozen times in the past twenty years. But, if I discretely tattooed that information onto my person then I’d have it whenever the situation arose. But where? I think I’d start with my inner thighs since nobody sees those except for my hubby, and he’s too preoccupied with other activities when they’re visible to pay much attention.
If the loan officer requested my address and phone number from 1988 I could always excuse myself to use the restroom, hike up my skirt, and find whatever I needed to know. Brilliant! Even better, I could tattoo my resume on my neck and if the interviewer asked for references I would insert my index finger into the top of my mock turtleneck, stretch the fabric just so, and say, “Pshaw, do I? Just take a look at my clavicle!”
No, that would be ridiculous. Mock turtlenecks are so passé and nobody says pshaw anymore.
Previously, I had pooh-poohed the Millenial fascination for tattoos by surmising they were reincarnated 1970’s wallpaper hangers. You see, I was there during the 1970’s and grew up with eye-popping colors, graphics, and textures on the walls of my childhood home and my friends’ homes. It’s no wonder I experienced motion sickness whenever I walked from the living room with it’s turquoise and gold-mottled walls flecked with streaks of silver glitter, into the bathroom with walls of pink imbued with strips of black velvet outlining baroque-like shapes. As a survivor of such a visually-overstimulated childhood, I couldn’t imagine adding epidermal wallpaper to my body. I had no objection to other people going under the needle, but I would abstain.
I must confess I never got around to tattooing my financial and employment records on my skin, but hubby is going to be attending my great-grandfather’s family reunion for the first time this summer, which will be held during the same month as our twentieth wedding anniversary. It dawned upon me that we should get matching tattoos. What better way to celebrate our love than to have our family histories tattooed on our respective backs? However, I realized there was a snag in my plans. If I had my family history tattooed on my back, how could I reference it during the family reunion when talking to cousin so-and-so? Then I had, what is called in Mormon circles, a personal revelation. Of course, I’d have my hubby’s family history tattooed on my back and mine on his back. Perfect! Not even our bishop could object to such an endeavor.
Since most of my four-generation pedigree is complete, hubby went to the tattoo artist first. As a fourth-generation Mormon descended from a man who had five wives, simultaneously, I might add; I chose the mighty Sequoia tree with its massive trunk, strong boughs and plethora of leaves that would include the names, and birth and death dates of dozens of my ancestors to be engraved on my hubby’s back.
I then spent a few months researching my hubby’s genealogy, but since he’s a second generation Irish-Austrian Catholic from New Jersey, I wound up having the Charlie Brown Christmas tree tattooed on my back. As we left the tattoo parlor my hunch-backed hubby opened the car door for me, and as I got in the driver’s seat, I knew that we were ready for a summer we would never forget.
~ Emery Lamb
Recent Comments