I Just Don't Get It

Exactly what is the idea of being tattooed? Is it to desecrate your body as much as possible? Is it to put so much ink on your body, like your arms, for instance so that they look dirty from a distance. My good friend Sal has a couple of tattoos. The first one he got was on his bicep. It says MOM. As he tells it if he hadn't put that there and had come home with a tattoo his mother, or father would have beat the crap out of him. He put "MOM" in the heart for self protection. I met Sal in 1974 and shortly after that he got his second tattoo of a parrot on his forearm. I hate tattoos, but somehow I really liked this one. To this day it looks fresh and clean. Then when tattoos became all the rage he was driven to getting a new one. This time it is on his calve and is of a panther clawing his leg. He thought it was very cool, until I showed him a waitress with the same design. That took a lot of wind out of his sails. Back in the day, the idea of a tattoo was to separate yourself from others. Today the idea is to be like the others.