All Tatted Up

I went to the Pollock Community Water Park for the first time ever as a customer on Sunday.  I felt a bit naked out there.  Not because it was the first time I was going around without a shirt on in public for about two years (not a lot of shirtless golf courses--and I'm not a big fan of going topless at EAA)--but rather because I don't have any tattoos.

I would be willing to bet that at least 80-percent of the adults in the waterpark had at least one tattoo.  The majority had more than one--and at least ten percent looked like walking, swimming billboards.  I was feeling like a minority having skin that has not yet been touched by the tattoo needle.

I'm all for personal expression, but I will never understand why people want to mar themselves--permanently--with body art.  Most of the tats I saw yesterday, you couldn't even tell what they were.  Is that a dragon on that guys arm--or is it an angry eagle?  Is that an exploding sun on the woman's upper back--or a blooming flower?  Is that a child's name or an item on a french restaurant's menu?  One guy had a spider web tattooed around his kneecap.  Just what is that supposed to represent?

And like it or not, people still look down on those who are all inked up.  What do you think when a waitress hands you your food in a restaurant and she's got four tattoos on her arm?  Or how about the guy in front of you in line at the bank with something written on the back of his neck?  Do you think "Wow, what a beautiful expression of art--and he gets to take that with him everywhere he goes"?  And let's just say that when the "canvas" gets a little flabby and wrinkly--the designs don't get anymore beautiful.

If the body is a temple--apparently some people think it looks better covered in graffiti.