I was in town the other day and I saw a biker looking dude who was scary from the front and I wanted to turn and walk the other way but I might have drawn more attention to myself than just quietly walking past him with my head down. When I thought things couldn’t get more uncomfortable and weirder on a Saturday morning in a very conservative town, the biker turned away and revealed another face literally tattooed on the back of his shaved head.
On closer inspection, I realized his head wasn’t entirely hairless; he left small tufts of hair which turned out to be the tattoos eyebrows and beard. I’m not one to burst out laughing in public especially in a bikers face or in his econd face on the back of his head, but his tattoo left almost as much of an impression on me as it did him.
I don’t have any tattoos or piercings, but I’ve come across my share of both. I’ve seen the tattoo of the back end of a fox apparently climbing into a guy’s belly button with a bunch of guys on horseback with dogs in tow racing across his stomach.
I don’t have any tattoos or piercings, but I’ve come across my share of both. I’ve seen the tattoo of the back end of a fox apparently climbing into a guy’s belly button with a bunch of guys on horseback with dogs in tow racing across his stomach.
Tattoos are usually found in groups and the nature of getting tattoos can be as addictive as gambling and what should have been just one tattoo, turns into a body resembling the Sunday funny pages but even more so because your first tattoo idea is not as good as the last one and we end up getting tattoos regularly to reflect our changing moods.
When tattoos aren’t enough, one sometimes moves on to piercings. The normal piercings don’t really bother me too much and back in the day, I was known to have more than a few earrings; but I stopped at the ears. At some point, people spiraled out to the eyebrows and the nostril piercings came into fashion, which I thought would be great to shoot boogers if you removed the nose ring. There are also septum piercings which hang under the nose and look like a door knocker or something a bull would wear which seems cool until you have to blow your nose.
The lip ring might work but it has to interfere with Chapstick application in the wintertime and make late night make-out sessions somewhat difficult. The tongue ring was great in theory but made me tfwalk wike dis for three weeks with a swollen tongue. Those options weren’t exciting enough so a chain was connected from the nose ring to the earring which works in theory until it catches on a tree limb when you’re mid-stride.
The lip ring might work but it has to interfere with Chapstick application in the wintertime and make late night make-out sessions somewhat difficult. The tongue ring was great in theory but made me tfwalk wike dis for three weeks with a swollen tongue. Those options weren’t exciting enough so a chain was connected from the nose ring to the earring which works in theory until it catches on a tree limb when you’re mid-stride.
The piercings move south to the nipples and the bellybutton which catch on your shirt and cause me to have to visit Old Navy once a year to buy two dozen flag t-shirts at $6 each. At the belly button, I thought that would be the end as you can’t really pierce a kneecap and toe rings (at least the pierced kind that go through the toes as opposed to around them) don’t really work with closed toed shoes.
The genital piercings were never a good idea especially considering the percentage of them that will put you in a hospital emergency room with an infection down there which is the last place I want anyone putting rubbing alcohol and a gauge bandage. They also make interesting conversation with the TSAs after a beeping metal detector reveals your secret.
A body corset is an interesting twist which consists of eighteen or so rings placed in two vertical and parallel rows on opposite sides of the spine with a ribbon laced between them which would cause me to say “your back is untied” just to see if they’d react. Body Corset Lacing Piercing, or BCLP, can also be done on the side of the body under the arm all the way down to the hip.
We now have pierced eyelids and those big hoopy ear things that stretch out the ears and look like a hula hoop which used to be reserved for just women on the cover of National Geographic with Frisbees in their lip but now adorn the kid who rings me up at the grocery store. The horns coming out of the top of the head make it difficult to wear hats and the metal cat’s whiskers make scarves out of the question but they would come in handy if I had to open a letter.
Tattoos and piercings are fairly permanent things and I told myself if I ever decided to go down that path again, I’d take some time to think about to make sure it was the right decision for me. Until I decide, I’ll be at the park tossing a Frisbee with a friend.
