The tattoo I'm thinking of getting ...

 

I did something this week I swore I’d never do, something I’ve viciously mocked others for doing.

I contacted a tattoo parlor about getting some ink.

We’ll get into all of that but first I need to wrestle with why it was a parlor.

The venerable Oxford English Dictionary says parlor (they spell it, parlour, the Limeys) is “a room or place for talking.”

Really?

I talk everywhere I go. Talk all the time. Wide awake or sound asleep.  I just can’t shut the hell up. I even talk out loud to myself when I’m driving down the road. Does that turn my crappy Ford Fusion into a car parlor?

Parlor sounds so dainty. You don’t hear parlor being used much to describe a place of business. In fact, the only other parlor that’s commonly used — or at least it was `about 30 years ago — is the fabled pizza parlor

I used to work at a place commonly referred to as a pizza parlor. It was a neighborhood joint. Good food, reasonable prices. I did that for a few years until I got called up to the big leagues: I became the starting cook at the Pizza Hut, then the New York Yankees of the ubiquitous flavorless pizza industry.

After that I worked at a couple newspaper parlors and eventually at the National Enquirer parlor.  Lots of talk went on there and most every conversation began with, ‘Pssst …”

Back to the tattoo parlor.

If you’ve ever heard me speak at a library, it’s likely you heard me open with this gem: “People who want to appear more colorful get tattoos. People who want to become more colorful, get library cards.”

It’s a strong line because it feels like you’re sticking it to the bullies. Plus, there’s a lot of truth to it. The more time you spend reading in libraries, the more interesting you’re bound to become.

But I don’t begrudge anyone who through their tattoo displays the kind of wit we’ll need to differentiate the robots from the human. For instance, George Carlin advised men to get a groin tattoo that reads, “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY PULL HANDLE.”

So, I could get a tattoo, but it would have to be the perfect tattoo.

Then, I realized it’s been there all along. In fact, it was one of the first items I dreamed up for the book that would become “Use All The Crayons! The Colorful Guide to Simple Human Happiness.”

I recalled it all these years later after being introduced at a golf event to four lovely fellows who I was told “were artists at the local tattoo parlor.”

Parlor!

I thought it would be nice spending a few hours with them in the parlor. Distractedly, I glanced at my wrist watch. It hasn’t kept time for six months. But getting it jump started usually costs between $20 and $35 depending, I guess, if the jeweler’s T-Mobile bill is due that day or not.

Why wear a wrist watch that doesn’t work?

It looks good on a sleeveless arm. It’s the same reason some dandies wear necklaces

Then there’s this. I was too busy.

You could say I couldn’t find the time, but that would be fraudulent.

Finding the time isn’t difficult. Time is everywhere. It’s on the walls, in our cars, in our pockets.

On one hand we’ve never been busier, yet on the other we have all the time in the world.

I like my watch very much. It was a gift from a Vegas host for a story I did about 15 years ago.

It’s been appraised at $1,200 and looking at it makes me happy I never became so pompous I disdain material things. But it’s not the watch I would have picked.

I’d have picked a Rolex, the finest in luxury watches. One of my good friends had a high-profile role with Arnold Palmer, a Rolex sponsor. The watchmakers gave him one just for being a swell dude.

Just like me!

I don’t know what kind of Rolex he wore, but I was told my friend’s watch was worth about $18,000.

I figure I’d have to internally grow six extra kidneys and donate them to ailing Rolex executives for them to give me one

So years ago I expressed my craven covetousness in “Crayons!” deluxe: “No. 11 …  ‘Get a $75 tattoo of an $18,000 wrist watch.’”

Now, that’s colorful. Very unique. Idiosyncratic. Only one problem:

My tastes had changed. An $18,000 Rolex tattoo just wouldn’t do.

Today, I need a $17.8 million one. I needed the Paul Newman Daytona Rolex, well, a tattoo replica of it.

It was perfect because Newman is my favorite actor. “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Verdict,” “Slap Shot,” ‘Butch and Sundance,” “The Sting,” I’d revere him even if he wasn’t one of Hollywood’s finest. He’s also a devoted and creative philanthropist and a charter member of Richard Nixon’s Enemies’ list.

His watch was auctioned in June to an anonymous bidder for the jaw-dropping sum.

A tattoo of one is, in fact, preferable in many ways to the real thing.

Think about it. It’s water proof. Hard to misplace, Your greedy descendants won’t fight over it, and only a truly ghoulish thief would try and steal it.

Still, a tattoo is so not me.

But that’s not what stopped me. What did?

The tattoo industry is too immature.

Let me explain. The tattoo guy said in order for me to get the kind of detail I’d need for it to be recognized as a Rolex, the tat would need to be as big as my palm. It would look like a hood ornament on my wrist or the kind of kitsch the hip hop performers wear around their necks to alarm gents like me.

“Maybe in a few years we’ll be able to detail like that, but we’re not there yet,” he said.

Structural immaturity is an interesting predicament for an industry that’s been run predominantly by people defiantly reluctant to mature.

I could wind up with a crude tattoo that looks less like a real Rolex and more like a cheap knockoff Rolex, albeit one that’s a subcutaneous impostor either way.

It is a true conundrum.

I wish I had time to think about it. But the world is moving too quickly and I need to unwind. 

Too bad. Because when it comes to making time stand still, a tattooed wrist watch is hard to beat.