Tattoo U

I have a confession to make.

Are you sitting down? Good. Here it is:

I do not have a tattoo.

In fact, the last time I had anything written on my body, it was the answers to a social studies quiz back in sixth grade—written on the palm of my hand with a blue ballpoint pen.

I know. It’s shocking, but let me explain.

I’m a member of Generation X—and an old member at that. I was born in 1968. I’m old enough to remember that Richard Nixon seemed to sweat a lot on TV, but I didn’t really know why.

When my generation wanted to rebel, we’d sneak a cigarette butt or a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco behind the snack shack at the local baseball field where my dad used to pitch for the team from Cincinnati.

No, not the major league team from Cincinnati, Ohio. The team from Cincinnati, Iowa (population around 300, probably including the cats and dogs). Dad was a good pitcher, but he wasn’t that good.

If we really wanted to shake things up, we’d pass around a bottle of Boone’s Farm on Saturday night—while sitting at a picnic bench at one of the roadside parks near Lake Rathbun. Usually, somebody’s older sibling had bought it for us on the sly at the local package store. This was back in the days before you could buy alcohol at any grocery store. You had to go to a state-licensed hootch emporium.

I can still see the one in Centerville, Iowa. It was a small building attached to the side of a discount store called Pamida. What was Pamida, you may ask? Think Walmart, but less classy.

The sign outside this particular package store simply said “Liquor.”

Well, that certainly left little room for misinterpretation, I’ll give you that. If the State of Iowa had decided they also needed a monopoly on the sale of laxatives and toilet paper, it would have made for one hell of a neon sign flickering suspiciously on Highway 5.

Anyway, my point is our rebellion back then was sporadic and episodic. It was also generally invisible to the public. Except, of course, for the occasional late-night stop on an Iowa gravel road—just long enough for a friend in the back seat to lean out and upchuck the last of the Boone’s Farm into a weed-choked ditch.

These days, the rebellion seems more archival. It’s also frankly a lot less edgy than some seem to think it is. When I was a kid the only people I knew who had tattoos were grizzled military veterans and longshoreman.

Now it’s like I took a thirty-year nap and—while I was sleeping—everybody read The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury and took it WAY too literally. Wherever I go, people have turned into walking Moleskines. Mark my words, in about twenty more years, sponge bath day at the nursing home is going to get really weird.

* * *

Despite what you may think, I’m not opposed to tattoos per se—but I have questions. The biggest one is this:

How do you decide what to have tattooed on your arm, back, or whatever?

If you insisted I had to get tatted up this very minute on pain of death, I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what words or design I’d choose, let alone where I’d get it. I would need some serious education about the entire process first.

I can see the curriculum at Tattoo U now.

• Freshman year: meaningful symbols you’ll regret by sophomore year

• Upperclassmen: ironic tattoos that require footnotes

• Graduate school: full sleeves, neck work, and the resignation that sleeves are now just called “arms”

I wonder, too, what if you have second thoughts? Could you get the tattoo done with invisible ink, just in case? No, I mean really.

I can’t even commit wholeheartedly to a choice in clothing more than two weeks in a row. I’d be absolutely petrified I would get what I thought was the perfect design—only to find out a month or two later the color scheme I’d chosen was that cheap because it was on a seasonal clearance sale.

Thus I’d be stuck with it, dreading the day the undertaker hauls my carcass away—rolling his eyes and muttering to himself the entire time, “Chestnut and espresso brown are so over sweetie…”

I’d be—may God forgive me for saying this—mortified… in more ways than one.

I could also see me doing something this permanent and then later realizing I’d accidentally gotten the Hanzi character meaning “soup”—rather than my husband’s Chinese name—inked on my biceps. Sean would never—and I mean never—let me hear the end of it. Although, come to think of it, soup is one of his favorite foods, so I might need to rethink that.

If I’m being truly honest, I don’t want one because I’m not a big fan of being jabbed repeatedly with a needle. There, I’ve said it. I’m a big wimp. As the cartoon character Daffy Duck once sagely observed: “I can’t take pain. It hurts me.”

Exactly.

It amazes me that devotees of this art don’t see it that way. My hat is off to them. I simply do not have that kind of commitment to anything. I can’t even work on my writing unless I’m settled properly in my comfy office chair—teakwood-scented candle gently flickering, the sunlight filtering through the upstairs study windows just so.

Suffer for my art? The hell you say.

By contrast, I once attended a patient who was covered—and I mean covered—in ink. To this day, I’m not certain what color his actual skin was. His evident tolerance for needle-based discomfort appeared legendary compared to mine. Despite this, when my nurse informed him he was due for a tetanus booster, he nearly collapsed in a full-blown panic attack right there in my office.

Dude. Seriously?

Oh well, time for another one of those “shared decision-making” patient encounters.

It’s probably all for the best. Given my tendency to overindulge in things that I love, if I did get into tattoos—well, that could be dangerous. I’ve already been up to my eyeballs in 12-step programs over the years. The last thing I need is that monkey—tattooed, of course—on my back. Think Curious George meets Bill W.

I’d be sitting there, styrofoam cup of coffee in hand, admitting to everyone in the room that I have a terrible inking problem—a compulsive inker, if you will.

“Hi, my name is Michael, and I’m a tat-a-holic.”

“Welcome Michael! Keep coming back!”

Nah. Never would happen.

If I get the urge, I’ll give the blue ballpoint pen a whirl first. Sort of the Boone’s Farm of the tattoo world.

I’m pretty sure I can quit that anytime I want.

Right? Right?