On my eighteenth birthday in honor to my entry into adulthood, I decided to get a tattoo. My friend Elaine, who was already eighteen, agreed to come with me and we duly made an appointment at the local tattoo parlor. She knew what tattoo she wanted, but I had no idea. Although I didn’t think that a tattoo of Tigger was the way to enter into a life of adulthood, Elaine wanted it and had made up her mind. I was pretty sure that if I was going to have a tattoo that was to be with me for the rest of my natural life, it had to be something meaningful. Something that said “me”! We arrived early to look through the stacks of tattoo books at the parlor, with me hoping that I would find what I was looking for.

There were some really scary numbers in the first tattoo books I looked through, and in my wildest imagination, I couldn’t imagine who would want any of these. What I really needed was something a little feminine, and I really believed that I would find something in the tattoo books. I was going to wear the tattoo on my ankle, and it was going to be there for ever, and be representative of me.

I looked through a number of tattoo books in the first half hour and found some of them ugly and some really beautiful, but none that said “this is you”, or leapt out from the page at me. At this point in time I was becoming concerned and one of the tattoo artists saw this. He came over to me with another armful of tattoo books and I thought, oh no, not more! But after asking me a few questions about what I liked and who I am, he went through the tattoo books until he felt he had the right one, opened it and pointed at the perfect tattoo for me.

He was showing me a dainty and attractive small dolphin. It represented me in many ways. I was an artist and this dolphin had a rainbow of colors on it. I loved the ocean and dolphins were my favorite of all of God’s creatures. It was perfect. I nodded and laid down the other tattoo books. I’d found what I’d wanted.

A while ago I was helping this other friend of mine look for a tattoo that would be perfect for her. We looked through the tattoo books, but she seemed to be having the same problem I had. I was looking at tattoo books, just to pass time and when I opened one of them, I found what she was looking for. A few hours later we left the parlor, happy and smiling, she with her perfect tattoo, me, with a happy friend. I would like to suggest to you, if you are looking for the perfect tattoo, you also look through plenty of tattoo books until you find the right one.

Tags: Adult Education

Share This

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!