I'm an old fart (just turned 50), old fashioned, stubborn, and opinionated about pretty much everything. I've gone on record about tattoos, not a fan, low class, etc.
But I've actually come around to the idea, albeit slowly. I mean some of them were okay, for men, mostly military types or gangsters. Then they were fine for regular guys as long as it was discreet and well done. So eventually I started seeing some on women as well that I actually thought were pretty good, for a tattoo that is. You get the idea - I'm a creature who's slow to evolve. I'm totally cool about it now, see a lot of tats I think are cool, sometimes talk about them and even look at the magazines on the rack. I suppose I could see myself getting one at some point, if there was a reason for it or something like that. But never, EVER in the course of this evolution did I ever come to the point where I could say, "today it is okay for my little girl, my only child, the apple of my eye and the light of my life, to go get herself a tattoo." Oh no, I never got there.
So it happened the only way it could, with a surprise phone call while I was away on a business trip, complete with pictures. And as expected I blew a gasket. Furious, speechless but not without plenty to say. Just wait til I get home! The next day my daughter (and probably myself as well) was saved. I was going through some stuff on some blogs I follow and I came across this quote by none other than Frank Zappa...
If you end up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.
And that was it. I'd always been one to do what I was supposed to do, playing by the "rules" and most of my life was pretty boring and pathetic because of it. It's only been the last few years that I've allowed myself to be my own person. And that's exactly what my little girl was doing - being her own person. She got a little girly tattoo at the base of her neck, a treble and bass music clef combined into the shape of a heart.
Anyway, I think she was almost as shocked as I was that I was cool with it by the time I got home (which of course made my wife that much angrier at both of us, but that's another story).
I guess I need to be careful. Who knows what I will evolve into next?
