San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
$OME TATTOO$ REMIND YOU OF YOUR EARLY 20$
Tattoos are a “for life” thing. There’s a very good reason so many people tell you to think carefully about the permanence of getting one. There are good reasons that there are rules that don’t allow you to get a tattoo until a certain age or if you’re clearly drunk. Generally speaking, they’re a Big Deal. However.
As a person with half a dozen tattoos scattered along my body, I can tell you most of mine were acquired in jest — or after a particularly silly brunch with sorority sisters in college. There’s one commemorating my siblings’ birthdays ... in case, I don’t know, I forgot? I have an unfortunate half of a heart that looks more like a drained battery that I got with a friend I don’t speak to anymore. There’s a heart with a cross through it on my wrist that an elderly man once stopped me about to say he also was “punk rock.” And I have a worn-down quote on my ribs where the ink has started to bleed and which I suspect will look more like a dark blue block in the not-too-distant future.
There’s also some meaningful stuff thrown in here and there. A dove commemorating faith (that was my first one, and it hurt a lot more than I thought). A bow along a rib to represent the world’s most romantic monologue ever (which you can find in
“Jane Eyre”). I’ll also likely be adding one in honor of my daughter, who will undoubtedly show up one day with equally dumb tattoos, and leave me no room for argument.
But anyone who knows me well would be thoroughly disappointed if I don’t mention the tattoo that has received the most attention. It’s a dollar sign. It is very inconveniently located at the top of my spine, just high enough that no shirt collar ever fully covers it, and it has sentenced me to a life of long hair. You see, I read Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” when I was 20 years old, and promptly lost my mind. To honor that novel, and the sort of brutal philosophy accompanying it, I got a decently large “$” tattooed on me. I will always remember the
artist looking at me, looking back to the sketch, and saying, “You’re sure?” My answer, an enthusiastic yes, had him shrugging and telling me to take a seat. My parents were thrilled.
That same tattoo led my current boss, years into the job, to stop me one day and say almost nervously, “I just have to ask, why a dollar sign?” I think he was relieved that there was some literary reference attached. Some of the guesses people have offered when they ask me about the dollar sign are linked to criminal behavior or to a Rihanna quote that is unsuitable for print.
In fairness to more serious tattoo people, I did try to have that “$” removed. It struck me as very funny that a tattoo that cost a whopping $60 was quoted at $600 to remove. I sat through exactly one session and immediately decided that the dollar sign wasn’t so bad. I thought that perhaps I could redecorate it, repurpose it, into a tree or something less curious.
That was 13 years ago, and I still haven’t touched it.
I think today I find it comical and a sort of humorous reminder of the ways that I tried to understand life in my early 20s.
I know that not everyone shares my laissez-faire approach to tattoos. Once in a professional development course, I asked a speaker if she thought tattoos were prohibitive to career growth in the Csuite. Her immediate answer — “Yes, absolutely” — was a surprise to me. So far, none of my tattoos have made me any less capable at my job, or presented any real problem, but who knows, maybe she was right. I do have doubts about that, though, as so many of my peers lean into the decorative opportunity of tattoos, or piercings.
Someone will have to let me know if a tattoo suddenly renders them unable to report for work the next day.
Sure, tattoos can be a Big Deal. But sometimes, they’re just a spontaneous decision you make after all-you-can-drink mimosas. And life goes on.