Recently an outbreak of tattoos has sprung up at church and I failed to get myself vaccinated. All of the sudden I have an appointment to get “inked” (as those of us in the tattooed community* call it) this Friday! That’s right, I have only 5 days or so to enjoy my wondrous blank canvas of a body.

*shortly

This is a pretty big change for me as I have gone a personal best 32 years without a tattoo up to this point. It’s not that I am anti-tattoo by any means. In fact, I chose to marry a beautiful woman with several tattoos of her own. I just never went about getting a tattoo as I had never found anything I felt passionate enough about to emblazon my body with. Of course I had ideas from time to time of things I fancied, but I never went through with tattooing them on my person. I am thankful for this as I would hate to be walking around right now with a “College Sophomore Forever!” on my arm, “Family Matters > Cosby Show” on my neck, and “Scooby Doo Doo” with an arrow pointing to my butt on my lower back.

Found this image under “classy” in the dictionary.

(For the record this is only an artist’s rendering)

One of my primary considerations has always been whether I would regret whatever I chose when I was, say, 70 years old. Every previous idea had failed that litmus test (with the obvious exception of “Don’t forget to eat sufficient fiber today” and “Arthritis Sucks!”

I had even tried creating my own design which I felt wasn’t too bad. As you all know, I am a graduate and ardent supporter of the University of Arizona. As such I am duty-bound to loathe all things Arizona State University. I felt the perfect outpouring of this sentiment would be a tattoo showing Sparky Sun Devil firmly held in a headlock by Wilbur the Wildcat. I even went so far to create a preliminary design myself. My “friends”, whose heads are obviously firmly entrenched in the gutter, did not have sufficient maturity to appreciate my art. Here it is, slightly censored to avoid more ignorant mocking. You be the judge:

This isn’t really vulgar. What is blocked out is an ill placed hand and tail.

So, what am I getting on Friday? A tattoo. What will the image reflect? I am putting a sweet sword with my favorite Bible verse emblazoned on it on the back of my arm. I guess this means I should start finding a favorite verse. Just kidding. The final product should look something like this but more Epic-y:

Of course, there are certain considerations with placing a tattoo on the back of my arm. For example, I will be working out this week and my arm could simply dwarf the tattoo’s planned scale by this Friday.

After three decades of procrastinating, I’m finally going to go through with it! No turning back now! I have made an appointment so it is written in pencil! Barring an act of God or a short phone cancelling the appointment, there is NOTHING that could cancel this appointment!

Stay tuned for an update once I get the tat!