Half nude, tattooed

In a store a couple of days ago I saw a vision: a tall young woman, clothing at a minimum, gliding down the aisle. I only got a moment's glance. I mean, it would be rude to stare, wouldn't it? But I noticed every other guy within range was looking at her. She was quite startling. In my quick assessment of her it appeared her clothing, short-shorts, flip-flops, and an abbreviated top, was purposely chosen to show off a bevy of brightly colored tattoos.

I've written before about young people and tattoos. There's a strong chance they'll regret them at some point. Right now they'e very cool, but in years to come who knows how people will feel about them? The young woman of this brief sighting was very proud of her skin art, or she wouldn't have deliberately chosen her wardrobe to accentuate them.

A few years ago, when young women with tattoos were still a novelty to me, a coworker, Alicia, told me for her birthday the week before she'd treated herself to a tattoo. It being a late spring day, she was wearing a loose top and billowy skirt; she was bare-legged with sandals, but I didn't see any obvious tattoos. She asked me, "Wanna see?" She turned around, pulled the waistband of her skirt down, and while I don't remember the exact tattoo, it was a butterfly, and in those brief seconds my brain took the requisite mental snapshot so I could refer to it later. The picture in my head looks something like this:

Alicia didn't last long in the job; I understand she's married now. I'll bet her husband is an art lover.

Rue McClanahan of the sitcom, Golden Girls, died this week, but immortalized with her castmates, on this girl.

A friend once made an observation: "If those are the tattoos you can see, what about the ones they've got you can't see?"

During my time working for a school district many kids entering school were registered by parents who were walking billboards for the tattooists' art. (Is that a word, "tattooist"?) Those kids will grow up not knowing that at one time their mom might have found work in a circus sideshow as the Tattooed Lady.

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Less appealing is a guy I've written of before, Curtis Allgier, a local convict who made a brief escape by killing the guard who had escorted him during an outside hospital visit. Allgier was recaptured a short time later. We've subsequently found out that despite his face being a mess of white supremacist slogans and swastikas, Allgier has had women from all over sending him money. I guess there's no accounting for taste.

Just yesterday a news story said his attorney was asking the judge to allow Allgier to cover his tattoos because he felt they would be prejudicial during his upcoming trial. How the tattoos would be covered wasn't explained. My suggestion is a paper bag with eyeholes.