Dye, dye, dye my darling

In keeping with the spirit of my blog, let's discuss another form of permanence: Tattoos.

I am lightly inked. My left forearm is home to a tribal-band wherein Chinese characters inscribe the name of my ex-wife, Melissa. That's right, I mixed tribal with Chinese characters. What I'm really wondering is how hard my tattoo artist was laughing on the inside when he inked me. I was young, excited about the tattoo and thought it was romantic as hell that Melissa's name would forever be written on my skin.

Now that I am divorced people ask me if I'm going to get the tattoo removed or covered up with more ink. Absolutely not, folks. Melissa is/was not a scar or blemish to be erased. She's the mother of my children and remains one of my best friends. Removing a tattoo about her would be like removing the chapter about The Great Depression from the American History books. (No correlation, by the way between Melissa and the Great Depression, just for the record)

I've seen some hilarious tattoos, including some mispelled disasters that had me laughing for days. So when it comes to permanence let's all do our research. Firstly, let us remember not to mix tribal and Chinese because no matter how devoted you are, it's a tattoo no-no. Secondly, spell check.

Stay classy, San Diego.