From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

“Hey sweetie! What’ll you have today?” asked the young woman with piercings and silver studs on her tongue and lips. My eyes shifted down to her hands which were inked with vines wound around the fingers, then crawled up her arms to the larger name BUTCH spelled out in caps, probably an old boyfriend.

Silly me, why do these people seem to find me whenever I get out to a new place for coffee? I felt embarrassed; my eyes drifted towards her feet. The server was  wearing combat boots  like soldiers in the army! I spotted a broken heart and flowers inked on her left leg just below her mini skirt which barely her covered her derriere! Who comes up with these crazy fashion ideas?

Why do people do these things to their bodies?

My goodness, this was certainly a new experience for me, a conservative senior who doesn’t encounter such unusual displays on my weekly outings for coffee and groceries. When I had a marketing job, tattoos were not permitted. We never hired those folks. Tattoos were considered to be tastelessly tacky…

But, I was rather enjoying myself and this new situation with younger folks.

Across the tables I spied a middle aged waitress taking an order. “Hi, honey, what’ll you have today, coffee and a doughnut or your favorite omelet with mushrooms and olives?”

Honey? Such familiarity was new for me…the womans’ shirt opened enough to reveal a heart on her cleavage and a cross on her wrinkled throat.

I didn’t expect to see more tattoos on someone who was almost as old as me!

Get with it, dearie! This is life today!

Tattoos are today’s new fad, a firmly mainstream phenomena. However, I’ve seen many fads come and go…I wonder how long tattoos will last. How long will people want to get inked from head to toe? According to Pew Research, nearly a third of American adults have at least one tattoo. It used to be for sailors and Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders, not you and me.

According to two New York Times columnists, Rothman and Feinberg, who wrote a fascinating article on tattoos in Sunday’s newspaper, the global tattoo market brings in about $2.2 billion and is expected to grow to more than $4 billion by 2032.

Many tattooed Americans get a tattoo to memorialize something like a marriage or divorce or someone like Mom or a girlfriend. However, if that person drops out of your existence, it’s quite expensive to have the tattoo removed. The business of having a tattoo removed is also flourishing. It’s estimated that by 2027, people with tattoos will be spending almost $800 million to have those tattoos removed.

According to health publications, tattoos can lead to a number of health risks like skin infections, allergic reactions and scarring. But when you’re young and want to be “with it,” those risks rarely frighten a person away from the tattoo parlors.

Tattoos can be a pricey ordeal whether you decide to be inked or suffer the pain of hoping to lose the offensive, obvious tattoo.

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.