Oh Yes and Hallelujah

Okay, I know stuff. I know that a few years ago every car company had to come out with its own SUV. Even Volvo, for crying out loud. It was like a race, a competition. Duh. Car companies compete with each other. Now they’re all trying to give SUVs away. Oh well.

And I know that if one TV show is a hit, the other networks will do a copycat show, or try. Like Survivor, for instance. Look what it has spawned (do I have to name them all?), the latest being a reality dog competition where people go to a house and live there together—with their dogs—and the dogs have to do hard things, and a panel of judges makes nice or harsh with the owners, and the owners who have been criticized cry or talk back or both. And there’s a golden bone for whoever does well—not for the dog—and a bottom three, an elimination, and hugging when someone is sent home. Yes, I watched once, but that won't happen again.

But today I saw something I never expected to see, and I call it strange. Yes, tattooing is big these days. People have flowers and snakes on their necks and gnomes and monsters on their backs or they have arms covered with serpentine whatevers. Personally, I don’t like tattoos, and I always wonder if when the person grows up, if that happens, he or she might want to be uninked.

I don’t much care for piercings, either. I had a student with ten studs in one ear. No biggie, I guess. And I had students with pierced tongues, eyebrows, nostrils, and other body parts, I’m sure, which were unseen by me, thank goodness. One guy would sit in my class and play with his piercing constantly . . . using his tongue. The stud was in his lower lip, and he would manipulate the thing, or lengulate it (a word I just made up). Anyway, he got so he could take the stud out and put it back into his lip using only his tongue. Look, Mom, no hands.

But I digress.

What I saw today was evidence of some quarter of society trying to—what?—compete? join? and I just didn't expect it, although I guess I should have. The sign on the place said, Devotional Tattooing and Piercing. I don't think it's that they sing hymns during the process, but I could be wrong.