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8 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | FEBRUARY 2020 By Crotchet E. Oldman What first caught my eye were her pretty legs. The young girl in shorts was standing by the exit from Costco and I was on my way out. As I got closer I thought, "Wow, that's a terrible bruise on her calf." It looked like she'd been smacked across the back of her leg with a baseball bat. Closer still, I realized it was not a bruise at all, but a tattoo: a badly blurred, black and blue rendition of a butterfly. The klutz who applied that blob on that gorgeous leg should have his tattoo needle broken over his head. And why would a girl with such natural beauty want to deface it? I suppose because it's all the rage these days to have a tattoo. Tattoos used to be found mostly on street gang members, sociopaths like Mike Tyson, professional merchant sailors and bumpkins who got drunk when a tattoo guy was in town with the county fair. No longer. I see tattoos on soccer moms, society matrons and professional athletes, on musicians, actors, overweight guys wearing tank tops and pretty girls at Costco. It is an ugly development. Some of the tattoos are carefully crafted designs, sharply drawn, with each element and color coordinated with the others. You can see naked ladies with angels' wings, skulls with daggers through them, Christian crosses with bats flying behind them – and those are the well designed ones. Many look pretty amateurish. Some of the human scratch pads with less than excellent designs take pains to show off their foolishness: rolled up sleeves, sleeveless shirts, tattoos above the collar: no collar, any excuse at all not to wear a shirt outdoors, tattoos on exposed ankles, wrists, and even the face. One of the more attention getting tattoos I ever saw was on a well-dressed woman walking down the street in Laguna Beach. She was wearing a stylish, low-cut blouse with a scoop neck revealing a tattooed group of some five or six small birds. As she walked her ample bosom rose and fell and the birds would swoop above her collar then plunge out of view, just like a flock of wheeling gulls. Less engagingly, I saw a heavyset guy in McDonalds wearing a tank top sporting a bunch of haphazardly applied, mostly blurred tattoos, showing off as much discolored flesh as he could and still get served. He looked like a freight car the taggers got to. I was warned as a kid that if I got a tattoo I would be unhappy when it lost definition, shape and color when I got older and started to sag. And maybe my sentiments about a panther climbing up my arm, "Death before Dishonor," "I like Ike," or a chesty girl riding a motorcycle would change. That's probably true, but sometimes tattoo recipients get unhappy sooner. I was in the Marines with a guy who got his girlfriend's name – Denise I think -- tattooed on his shoulder. It was a good-sized, multicolored tattoo, with Denise surrounded by hearts and flowers and flying birds. He was going to surprise her with it on his next home leave. The tattoo was still scabbed over when he got a Dear John letter from Denise announcing she was taking up with a fellow with a college draft deferment. The college boy was clearly a better prospect than a guy who carried uncomfortably heavy things up hills for $75 a month. (And for that matter, was dumb enough to get permanently branded without some kind of permanent commitment.) My Marine friend was inconsolable. He discovered, back then, removing the tattoo would cost many times more than getting it applied, and that the process involved a series of operations removing expanses of tattooed skin then sewing the edges together over a whole bunch of time – a year or more. With less than unalloyed sympathy, we told him he could specialize in girls named Denise, like some guys only go for girls with blue eyes or long legs or blonde hair. Of course eyes, legs and hair can be distinguished at a distance. Determining a girl's name requires opening a conversation and would have a high rate of false starts. Another suggestion was he have the tattoo artist touch up his work to make it read Dennis and then join the gay community. I was transferred shortly after that and never found out what he finally did. But when I left, he had Denise prominently perched on his shoulder every morning in the barracks shower. I actually thought about getting a tattoo myself a couple of times after hitting the night life too hard on liberty. Fortunately, by the time my good judgment was impaired enough to consider a tattoo, I had spent too much money to have retained the price of one. I guess it's good we were so poorly paid. Now in my dotage, I am considering tattoos again. I keep forgetting things and a list tattooed on the back of each hand would help. I could put chores on one hand: "Turn off the oven," "Floss," "Is your fly buttoned," "Charge the cell phone," stuff like that. On the other hand I could put important facts: "Wedding Anniversary May 5," "Wife's birthday Oct. 22," "ATM PIN 6226" "Cell phone (999) 999-999." They would be long lists, already running half way to the elbows, and the way my memory is declining, items will need to be added regularly. This could catch on. Does anyone know where I can get a tattoo deal? Whippersnappers and their gol dern ink

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