Finding Joy in Snarkville

I had to take the car in yesterday morning for a recall repair (they needed to download new software to my car’s computer — I’m sure it was the auto-verison of Windows XP with SP2’s upgrade to IE7).  Knowing this wasn’t going to take long, I was prepped with my knitting and my book on my iPod.

When I get into my car to drive over, I notice that it is a HORRIBLY cold 36 degrees out with WIND.  I’m bundled up in my winter coat and hoping the seat heaters come on NOW.  However, when I walked into the waiting room of the dealership I see “Maria.”  Maria is dressed in her finest, satin, spiked heels (black); skin tight, “skinny” stretch jeans, and a red cotton camisole.  That’s it.  I’m shivering in my heavy coat, sweater and jeans.  Heck, I even put socks on (which if you know me at all means I was totally cold).  But she’s hanging ALL out in pratically nothing.

So, my first snarky thought was that she was having a hot flash and had no idea that sane people were wearing coats.  Then I felt total guilt and wondered if she could afford a coat.  Then she turned.  What I saw was a tattoo the size of he entire upper arm.  It was HUGE, poorly done in mostly blacks and greys.  It was a portrait of some guy.  It took about four times of her walking past me for me to work it all out.  It was a re-production of some photo (I’m betting a WWII era photo of a man in uniform) with the words “In loving memory.”

Now, I make no secret that I’m not a huge fan of tattoos.  I’ve also made no secret that I’ve seen some that are truly beautiful.  It wasn’t the fact that after taking in this thing on her arm, I also noticed the lower back tatoo and the ankle tattoo — none of which I’d call particular good.  No, what started to bother me was the “in loving memory” part.  So, I can now assume she has some dead guy on her arm.  Given my guesses about her age, the photo, and the age of the guy, I’m going to take a wild guess and assume this is her father.

Fair warning, portrait tattoos are my LEAST favorites.  I’ve just never been impressed with them.  I’m also not impressed with anything written in gothic letters all the way across the upper back or down a belly.  (As a total sidenote, when I was in my 20’s the tattoo of choice was a sunburst looking think around a woman’s navel.  I was unable to look at one and not think, “what is that going to look like after they have a baby?”)  So, I would have never been impressed with this thing on her arm — however, where’s the logic is putting the likeness of some dead person with “in loving memory” on her arm?  Is she dedicating all the work she does with that arm to him?  Is she now a walking, living, breathing monument to this dead guy (and if I’m right and this is her father — was she not a monument to him without the ‘plaque’?)  And did she perhaps think that her husband may not want to look at his father-in-law’s face all the time?  Seriously, what was she thinking??

My theory is she wasn’t thinking.  Since it is apparent from her lack of decent clothing, she probably doesn’t think much (I will give her cudos, when she walked outside she wasn’t rubbing her arms or doing anything that the seriously cold people would do).  I am betting on a drunken night she decided to get this tattoo, probably thought it made her deep or was a kind and sweet gesture to her dearly departed father — but didn’t think it through.  Now I wonder if she regrets it.  If guilt for regretting it plagues her.  I mean what could be worse, doing something clearly rather dumb; regretting it; and then feeling guilt because you are somehow regretting some odd honor.

Or perhaps I’m overthinking.  Who me?  Couldn’t be?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 9:23 am and is filed under Snark for Snarky Sake. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.