She looked like a normal person. In fact, she looked adorable and spunky and had a smile that infected everyone around her. I had just bagged her lotion while she rummaged through her purse for her chosen method of payment when she opened her mouth to speak.

“I hope that’s the right lotion. I’ve never had a tattoo before,” she said, pulling out her credit card.

Because the tattoo parlor was right across the street from my little drug store, I had encountered many newly-inked persons and knew this to be the right lotion in question. I told her so with an encouraging smile and began to run her card.

“It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.”

“A lot of people say that when they come through here.”

Her card was worn so it was taking several tries to get my ancient cash register to read it. Had I known then that I was precisely 30 seconds away from that dreaded, awkward moment I would have given up and just typed the number into the machine. Oblivious to my impending doom, however, I slid the card one more time.

“I had a butterfly done,” she confided to me, adding another smile. “Butterflies are sort of like my spirit guide.”

Spirit Guide? I thought with a growing sense of unease, but I smiled back at her and waited for the register. A young man stepped in line behind her.

“Here, take a look!” She said as she promptly unzipped her pants and pulled them down, revealing almost every inch of her pink, lacy thong and a rectangular bandage smack in the middle of her hip.

My hands froze on her credit card.

Hello, Awkward Moment. I glanced to the young man in line behind her whose eyes were glued to the sight before him and must have turned a deep crimson color because when I looked back at her she had a puzzled and half-disappointed expression. It was then that I realized she had peeled away the bandage in order for me to better see the tattoo. Of course, there really wasn’t much for me to see given how very new the tattoo was but saying so was unlikely to satisfy her.

I managed to stammer a compliment along the lines of, “Oh, how nice.”

With a huffy pout she pulled her pants back on and snatched her card away from me. “Not a very friendly State, I guess.”

In an effort to salvage her patronage I apologized, saying something about the line behind her and such. Unfortunately for me, this was apparently the wrong move because the young man said, “Oh, I can stand here a minute or two longer.” Which immediately set the conversation into yet another awkward silence as the girl suddenly realized her unwitting audience was positioned in such a way that he obviously had not been looking at her tattoo.

Undaunted by this revelation, the girl gave him a dazzling smile and thanked him for – what? Thanked him for staring at her body? For unhealthy fantasies that nearly every heterosexual man could have admitted to in that same circumstance?

As confounded by the situation as I was I did manage to smile and work my way through the man’s purchase but long after the two had left my store the event held my fascination. Was this a generation issue for me or just a cultural one? The girl had mentioned that my reaction told her this rural state was an unfriendly one, but just how friendly is too friendly?

Just a generation ago this same situation would have brought about an audible gasp. If a child had been present then the mother would have dropped even the most breakable of items in order to cover their son or daughters eyes from the taboo before them. Scandal and scorn would have followed the audacious girl through her neighborhood to such a degree that she might have been wearing a scarlet letter on her blouse.

I might have considered this to be an East Coast / West Coast culture gap save for a similar situation that occurred on the other side of the country, whereupon a woman dropped trough to display her tattoo. This tattoo, however, was located dangerously close to her tail bone and her intent was not to show it to me, but to my significant other.

It would be obtuse of me to think this a Tattoo issue and were I to shake my fist at the youth today for pushing societal boundaries I would sound frighteningly like my mother. Perhaps it is an issue of ignorance. Perhaps some people just do not understand that they have leaped the gap between “friendly” and “creepy”.

In an effort to promote education in this area, here then are a few basic rules of thumb;

1. Attempt not to disrobe in public. Although many may argue that a bathing suit shows more than undergarments these days, pink lacy thongs have a tendency to be extremely sheer.
2. While traveling, refrain from asking “Where are you headed?” To the paranoid traveler this is synonymous with “You have a pretty mouth.” This is especially so when you are talking to a single mother and her two children.
3. Assume things in private. Do not, for instance, ask the girl at the register if she is “Hiding a pregnancy under that bulky sweater.” Inevitably the answer will be no.
4. If you recognize someone in a dark movie theater – or think you do – wait until the movie is over and you are in a lighter area to sneak over and speak to them. This is a protection issue for you as well, you never know who carries mace these days.
5. If you see the most adorable baby in the store you are more than welcome to coo and comment on the child, but keep your hands off. This is also a protection issue. New parents might read a threat in your movements.

These are just a handful of ways to keep from scaring people off. This is not to say that following these rules will keep you out of the “creepy” category, just that they can help. And if you want to share your tattoo with random people on the street, it might be best to choose a location that does not require you to remove your pants to do so.