Don’t look for a point, a moral or stuff to justify you getting or not getting a tattoo in this article. I was curious and thought I would pass along the information with no judgment about your personal decisions intended. One of the great things about learning is filling in knowledge gaps you might not have known you had.
I have recently noticed that many of the people I see in my excursions - you know, trips to Walmart, the golf course or to various doctors’ offices - are sporting visible tattoos. I’m also sure there are a significant number unseen, but that’s a different matter entirely. I don’t have a tattoo and have never seriously thought about the possibility except for once when I was 16 and mentioned it to my mother. She didn’t ask what it would be or where it would go, but looked me straight in the eye and asked, “would you put a bumper sticker on a Corvette?” Sometimes I was a little slow on the uptake when talking with her, but not this time, and that effectively ended my interest in any personal tattoos. I have, on the other hand, looked upon several with wonder and admiration but without any degree of envy, but have found several intriguing designs in varicose veins on both my legs.
We all have at least one friend from our youth that learned the hard way about decisions made under the influence of alcohol, and that’s how many of my earlier associates came by their tattoos. Some of them, after enlisting in a branch of the armed services, succumbed to simultaneous applications of alcohol and poor advice and, like Jimmy Buffet’s Mexican cutie tattoo, “how it got there they don’t have a clue.” Of all the negative effects we have all experienced through the generous consumption of alcohol in a relatively short period of time, the resultant morning hangover pales in comparison to the insidiously persistent mental tolls of remorse and regret.
Upon checking further into the subject, I discovered that around 32% of Americans have at least one tat, and one in five of those have more than one. More women than men have body ink - 38% to 27% respectively - and 56% of women between the ages of 18 and 29 have indelible art upon themselves in every imaginable and several unmentionable locations. I am convinced that number is higher among that age group because my personal experience reminds me that never once between the ages of 18 and 29 did I ever concern myself with what my life situation - much less physical appearance - would be when I was 72. I was beset with the immortality complex of youth, and often reminded myself when watching my parents gain weight or follow a set schedule or continually watch the same tv shows or predictably go to the same routes to the same places again and again and that I, of course, would never allow myself to be anything other than what I was right that moment. It was easier to do stuff at that age and never consider that one day your body and your attitude might be different. Some things that appear attractive at 25 will not have the same attraction after 50. Things sag, droop and lose that toned muscular appearance when the inevitable and timeless strength of gravity asserts its irresistible powers, and no body part is immune from its effects. Not even the brain.
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