Tattoo Me!

I can’t believe I’m going through with it. Maybe it’s been the eleven 12-hour night shifts. Maybe it’s this crappy weather.

I’m going to get a tattoo. At the Addict’s tattoo shop in Salem. On Wednesday.

This, from a father who has forbidden his daughters from getting one. (The oldest got one anyway.)

Who always balked at those young people who have them: “You’ll regret that when you get married or want to go to a formal function in a sleeveless dress!”

Who’s wife (a nurse) told him horror stories of old people with wrinkled faded blue tattoos in the worst places…

Yep, I’m gonna get one! Now I’m a weenie so it isn’t going to be the eagle’s wings spread across my chest or even Betty Boop or a heart with Cupid’s arrow on my bicep. I have to confess, I’ve been seeing a lot of tattoos on ladies’ backs, particularly arousing when underlined by the top of a thong slightly showing above the belt…there oughta be a law! So yours truly has decided to get a tattoo on his back. No, not a leafy Celtic thing. I’m not a girlie, you know!

A Mickey Rat Tat.

Now Mickey has been with me since high school. I can’t remember the exact year; I think it was around my Benita phase. (Benita was a cashier at a grocery store I worked at; She’d ring ‘em through, I’d pack her bags). She was attached to another guy (of course) but that never stopped me, and my highlight with her was a Grand Funk concert at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Sigh.

Anyway, this is about Mickey. He’s just a little rat I drew one day, and have been drawing ever since. He was kind of anti-Mickey Mouse, although I’ve had a thing for Mickey the Mouse too, having seen the light after numerous visits to Disney Land and Disney World.

Mickey (the Rat, that is) has found himself in many places; …several ladies’ t-shirts strategically located over the heart, or on the back of a friend’s car, or on some “modern art” in a park in Kingston late one drunken night, or as a signature on thousands of love letters. (For those that don’t remember what a love letter is: This is a piece of paper with writing on it stuffed into an envelope, affixed with a stamp and put in a mailbox. Miraculously, 2 weeks later it ends up at the recipient’s, who tear it open to read the latest meanderings and vows of love.)

He even found himself drawn on my newly-wed wife’s butt. (Yes I have the photo!) But that was a long time ago and he was quickly washed away.

T’was a time when Mickey was sought after by many a young lass, and those who qualified got their very own Mickey Rat t-shirt. But that was even longer ago.

Mickey was dormant for many years, only making casual appearances – he had become a recluse, a Mickey Hughes, and had been at risk of passing away altogether. But alas, he lives, and has been making somewhat of a comeback lately. No young nubile has asked for a t-shirt in the last 25 years, but he has found his way into numerous birthday cards, Christmas cards, etc. People still use these as methods of communication.

He even went high-tech, got himself scanned, and onto the Internet.

And now, after watching my back all these years, he will be permanently positioned there. I just had a thought…. If I had been born 25 years later, maybe today’s young lasses with their affinity for tattoos…oh never mind. It’s just not gonna happen.

He’s kinda cute, dontcha think? I know, I know, he looks more like a mouse than a rat.

But looks can be deceiving.