Two Tattoo Tales

I'm still on vacation in North Carolina. The topic of tattoos came up twice last night, and neither time made me feel very good.

We drove out to the store and passed a tattoo place, and we joked that we should all get tattoos. That opened the topic of how painful they were. One of the guys with us is pretty big, and he has a tattoo on his upper arm. I said that my tattoo really hurt, but I've heard that getting one on the inside of the arm is much worse. He said "mine doesn't go all the way around. It was supposed to, but they messed up. My friend drew out a design..." I interrupted him. "Stop right there. Don't bother finishing the story." He was understandably confused. "Why?" I explained: "Let me finish the story for you. He sketched out a design which would wrap around my arm twice, but your arm was too big for it." He laughed "well, that IS what happened!"

No sympathy from me.

We stopped by Walgreens (the CVS of 60 years ago; I had no idea they were still in business either). As I was leaving, the checkout lady noticed my tattoo and called out "oh look, you have an adorable dolphin on your leg." Dolphin? ADORABLE?! I turned around and said "it's an adorable killer whale!" She was unimpressed. "Oh, it's a whale." "A KILLER whale! Fierce predator of the sea!"

The rest of the people in line just had to stand and wait as the cashier started to explain to me that she had a sun and moon tattoo on her back. But she lived in South Carolina at the time where it was illegal to get a tattoo. So her parents drove her across the border to North Carolina, where it WAS legal. I'm sure it was quite the scandal.

In an unrelated indignity, one of the kids staying in our beach house, maybe about 5 years old, saw my room and said "isn't this room a little girly?" I tried to explain to him "well, yes the room is yellow and there are flowers and polka dots on the blankets, but that's just the way things are when you stay at the beach." He wasn't buying it. He said "maybe it's because you work for Disney."

Apparently, if you work for Disney it makes you a girly man. With an adorable dolphin tattoo. And skinny arms.