I'm A Bigot

A tattoo bigot that is. Anyone else? I'm not referring to a cute little heart or whatever else on a girl or guy's ankle or shoulder. I'm talking about massive ones all over the arm or, worse, all over the body. They're disgusting and I'll have to admit I think worse of someone when I notice they're all "inked" up.

I can be nice about it. There was a libertarian gal that used to live a few blocks from me. She's since moved to Missouri but we became Facebook Friends. I can't remember who defriended who, but Friends no more.

No real falling out except she'd regularly post pictures of whole body tattoos and such saying she wanted to look like that. I was grossed out and would ask her why she would want to defile her body.  Because that's just what it is, defiling your body. She'd just reply something along the line of "My body is a canvass waiting to be painted...". Yuck!

A few weeks ago I was working over by Eureka High School. I do a few properties in that neighborhood. I see some girl approaching me from across the street. She has a short sleeve blouse on and I notice there isn't a bare spot of skin on her arms- all tattoos. Yuck!

The way she was trying to make eye contact with me I assumed she was a panhandler. Nope. She said they just moved in to the house on the corner and asked if I had room on my schedule for another place. I was honest when I told her I didn't, although I might well have turned her down anyway just because of the tattoos.

I'll admit she was real nice. But how could she do that to herself?

Then there's some of the guys on the TV ghost shows. At least one of the shows has a bunch of tattoo freaks. One is named Steve Gonsalves, if memory serves. Seemingly otherwise decent people that decided to make freaks out of themselves. Makes me want to not watch the show.

Tattoos don't necessarily mean someone's a bad person. I recall one of the nicer fellows I met years ago at the Eureka Old Town 4 July Festival. A guy came walking by our table. Buzz cut on the head. That's fine. Wearing black leather biker pants and carrying a black leather jacket over his shoulder. What got me, though, was his arms were all tattooed. Yuck! Who is this freak?

He came over to chat, him being a libertarian himself. Turned out we'd spoke on the phone before. His name was John Fleury. He ended up winning a seat on the Mckinleyville Community Services District. He had to move shortly after winning the seat but from the few times I spoke with him he was a top notch guy.

But those tattoos. I make no apologies for thinking worse of him for having them, at least at first.

And how are these people going to get jobs? I guess some businesses hire them. I wouldn't, and would avoid patronizing one that did, assuming it was a business I could avoid.

I've always been impressed with Les Schwab Tire. Clean cut workers that really hustle. I commented to the girl in their office about it once. Wasn't thinking of tattoos at the time but she said they had a dress code. Part of it was no visible tattoos. Good! More places should do that.

That's when I realized why some of the employees there wear turtlenecks on fairly warm days, or have elastic bands on their arms- to cover up tattoos. That's half way there, and I suppose a good compromise. Even freaks need jobs, but I don't have too much of a problem with just a small tattoo on one arm. It's still weird, but not to the point of being a freak.

The sad part is many people get the tattoos when they're younger. Then years later they realize what a freak they are. They end up paying big bucks for laser removal and even that doesn't totally get rid of them. The skin is usually permanently scarred from what I've seen.

I'd almost support passing a law against tattooing. But that's not me and we already have too many people trying to ban this and that. People should be allowed to make and suffer from their own mistakes. All I can do is remain a proud bigot that has no qualms about saying massive tattooing is disgusting as are the people who partake in it. 

The worst part is it seems more and more young folks are doing it. Yuck!