Tit for Tat

At a time when most young men were piercing their ears, I was afraid of panties.

My dad--always a good negotiator--offered me a compromise. I could get my ear pierced if I agreed to wear panties for the rest of the time I lived under his roof. At the time, that seemed like a bad deal. In retrospect, it probably would have allowed me to get in touch with my feminine side a lot easier and allowed me accept my poofy nipples before I reached an advanced age. If I had been wearing a lace thong in the locker room, the jocks probably wouldn't have paid much attention to my woman nips.

So now...more than a decade later...I am an unmarked human being. I have not pierced an ear, a nose, a navel, a poofy nipple, or my thingy. I watched several friends go under the needle. Frankie B. once spent a night in bed moaning and almost lost his damned mind when someone brushed his newly pierced nipple.

I also have never gotten a tattoo. Never a tweety bird on my ass. Never "MOM" on my arm. And if I wanted to now, I would have to leave the state of South Carolina. After another year of debate in the General Assembly, the House of Representatives has killed a bill to allow tattoo parlors in this state.

From the AP wire:

The House voted today to kill the bill, 55 to 48. West Columbia Representative Jake Knotts led the effort. He says he doesn't think people should mark up their bodies.



Well, thank you Jakie, for making sure we all follow your rules. Knotts is the type of man you would expect to say such a thing. He's a brash, loud-spoken, red-faced, portly man from the middle of our state. He shakes hands with a full pump of the arm and just won a dead man's seat in the state Senate. He is the roadrunner to my desire to put Wile E. Coyote on my forearm.

For about 45 seconds, I considered heading up to North Carolina (where Progressive is not a four-letter word) and getting a tat in protest. The only thing that stopped me (actually the same thing that has stopped me for the last ten years or so) is not knowing what in the hell I would have permanently printed on my body. A weather man friend of mine has a hurricane tattooed on his arm. That's cool. Me...I got nothing.

I could tattoo my wife's name on my chest, but where would I be when she finally discovers she's married to a half-man with poofy nipples and goes out to find Derek Jeter? I could tattoo my dog's name on my forearm, but I'd get tired of answering..."What the hell does Scoop mean?"

Maybe a permanent press pass, a bottle of Jager, or a broken guitar?

No...I got it. The perfect anti-South Carolina tattoo...a giant South Carolina Palmetto Tree on my back. Take that, you backward yokels. No tattos for me? I tattoo your state symbol on my back.

I wonder if ol' Jakie would feel any differently if the bill would've inlcuded an amendment requiring all South Carolinians to tattoo the Confederate Flag on their forehead?