Tattoos

I'm baffled by the popularity of tattoos in recent years. When I was in high school twenty (gasp!) years ago, a tattoo was a sign of a low-life, poorly educated near-criminal from the wrong side of the tracks. Just what every upper middle class girl wanted for a boyfriend, but not the kind of guy you'd take home to meet your parents! A girl with a tattoo? Well, that was the kind of girl who was a guaranteed party on your first date, but not worth asking out a second time.

Nowadays it's not just teenagers and twentysomethings getting tattoos, it's their parents. I happened to be discussing tattoos and piercings with the parent of my daughter's friend one day. I made the mistake of referring to lower back tattoos as "tramp stamps". You guessed it: she had one. Oops! My hubby has referred to these tattoos as "'ho tags". Another hilarious term, and I'm really glad I didn't use that one during that conversation.

I've heard that lower back tattoos may prevent one from getting an epidural during childbirth if the anaesthetist feels there's a risk of pushing the ink into the spinal area during insertion of that honkin' big needle. I don't know if this is true or just an urban myth, made up by some mum trying to scare her daughter out of getting one of these tattoos.

I don't have a tattoo, nor do I ever intend to get one. If I can't decide from one year to the next what colour to paint the walls in my living room, why would I have something permanent embedded in my skin?