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No prompt today.  I am currently on day four of vacation with my parents and niece.  I usually don't have much to gripe about on vacation with my family, apart from my inevitable sunburn, but thanks to my cousins' new tattoos, the big hullabaloo with my father has been about society's obsession with tattoos.  This isn't the first time my father has expressed his concern with tattoos, and I'm sure it will not be the last, but this vacation--especially on the beach, where so much of one's body is exposed--he seems unable to keep his opinions to himself. 

From someone who has a tattoo--yes, I'll admit that at eighteen I was eager to get inked up--it is difficult to not be offended by my father's judgmental remarks.  It is even more difficult to suppress laughter as my grandmother advises me to never get one.  You see, my father and grandmother and probably the only members of my family who do not know about the small four-leaf clover printed on my hip, and the only reason I keep them out of the loop is because of their uneasy reactions to even the slightest smudge of permanent ink. 

Today there was a woman on the beach with tattoos on her legs and arms.  She had large tattoos, but they were tasteful--no naked people or trashy curse words to be seen.  Of course, my father pointed her out, as he had several others yesterday.  Why is a person with an abundance of tattoos considered trashy?  I mean, really, tattoos are expensive, so why would you think that someone with tattoos is beneath you?  They must have some money in the bank.

Besides that, I have to wonder what makes tattoos so offensive to my father.  The fact of the matter is, the way someone looks ultimately plays no real part in his life, especially the physical appearance of someone he doesn't even know. 

Sometimes, especially lately, I wonder what my father and grandmother would say if I told them about my tattoo.  Much like my sexual orientation, I wonder if it would change what they thought of me as a person.  Would I not be the same person I have been for the past four years in which I have had a tattoo, or would I somehow transform to a rebellious hooligan in their eyes just because their knowledge of what my life is has suddenly changed before their eyes?