The Top Five Reasons To Not Get a Tattoo

A couple of my friends have asked for my advice.  Their sons are talking tattoos and these wonderful women understandably don't want their babies to mar their Adonis-like bodies with ink-filled puncture wounds from dirty needles. Who could blame them? 

So they asked me, The Teenage Whisperer, to craft a list of convincing reasons why their boys shouldn't get tattoos.  I agreed, if only because if I do this, they will owe ME one.

Before I reveal the list, let me just admit that, for the past three years, I have been considering a tattoo myself.  It started when I passed by the storefront where Miami Ink was being filmed during a business trip to South Beach.  I was feeling carefree and independent and experimental on that trip so I started to think, "Why not?" 

But before you get all excited and peek-a-booey, know that I haven't gotten one yet, if only because I can't think of an image I want seared onto my skin for all of eternity.  What kind of picture represents my life and my aspirations now anyway?  A vacuum cleaner with an upholstery attachment?   A sinkhole?  A quart of milk on sale?

But as usual, I digress.

I gave this a lot of thought and here are the top five arguments I think will resonate most strongly with my friends' sons.  Try them at home and see if they work.

5) Tattooing hurts.  And, if I remember correctly, you cried really hard after your circumcision and this time, you won't be getting a pacifier dipped in Manischewitz to soothe you.
4)  A poll of 1,000 beautiful, really well-endowed women conducted by Yankelovich revealed that 98% would not "hook up" with a guy with a large tattoo.  This poll is subject to a sampling error of +/- 3%.  This last fact has nothing to do with anything, but it gives the poll (which is completely fictitious, by the way) an air of legitimacy, statistical validity and reliability and will remind your son that you haven't forgotten his failing grade in stats.
3)  If you get a tattoo, I will surprise you in your college dorm room one weekend, and regale your friends with stories of how you came home from preschool one day wearing Care Bear underwear.  (Not that there's anything wrong with that).
2)  One day your now taut body will become fat and puffy and the coiled purple snake you so proudly flaunted in your youth will stretch and stretch until it looks as though it came to life and bit you all over, leaving you with nearly lethal (and totally unattractive) black and blue marks.

Not a good look, my son.

And the number one reason why you shouldn't get a tattoo:


1)  Because when you are all grown up, I will move in with you, watch Murder She Wrote reruns all day long and tell you to put on a sweater whenever I get cold.

Love ya, honey!  Mom xxx ooo