Library Odd Jobs: Tattoos and Calipers
The other day, I had an odd encounter at the circulation desk which reminded me of @beelzebubba's recent post, This Redneck's Standing on Tattoos.
It all started when I went out to the parking lot with an extra bin for our courier which we had forgotten to add to his work staging area. As I walked back toward the door, I stopped for traffic, but was waved across by the driver of a side-by-side ATV. Quads and UTVs are popular, if dubiously legal, transportation in my own version of rural redneck America here in the inland northwest. Some people take back roads and trails to get into town from nearby homes, too. At any rate, they drove past and pulled into an empty space as I walked up toward the library door.
"See, I can park!" said the driver, or something to that effect, earning sarcastic clapping and praise from her passenger. I turned and added some applause of my own, since either celebration or mockery was in order and I wanted to participate either way.
The girls eventually came into the library, and after a while, they approached the desk to request a print they had submitted to our queue. One had a tattoo design she had created, and wanted it on paper so she could see it to scale. I brought her the paper, and she was disappointed to see it had scaled to the width of the page. Not a problem. I can over-engineer a solution!
My cheap Harbor Freight calipers helped save the day!
I asked her to just sketch the size of the tattoo she wanted on the sheet. I had my calipers on hand from when I had been doing some 3D printing verification. I used them to measure the image on the sheet and her sketch, crunched the numbers to find the ratio, and ran the first print through our copier with that percentage to get exactly what she imagined.
Now you know another odd thing that happens at the library: tattoo design. A lot of older folks consider all tattoos evil, and I certainly have my own ideas regarding aesthetics, but she wanted a tattoo she apparently designed herself instead of just a design from an artist's book. I can respect that.
Yet another generational shift is the increasing prevalence of tattoos. Baby Boomers had almost none unless they were sailors, bikers, or gang members. Gen X WASPs started to get more ink. Millennials used tattoos both to chase trends (tramp stamps and barbed wire biceps, anyone?) and express their individuality through various designs associated with their interests. Nowadays, skilled artists with proper sanitation are available in all but the smallest towns, and of course, there are always shadier options from people buying their gear on Amazon or worse.
If you want a tattoo, I have a few general recommendations.
Print your design and hang it somewhere you see every day. If you're tired of it in a few months, you probably don't want to wear it forever.
Choose an artist based on their skill and cleanliness, not price. If you want a good tattoo, be prepared to pay the price it takes to have it done right.
You probably shouldn't have anything which cannot be covered, especially on your face or neck. This is, of course, very general advice, and you may value this expression above potential consequences, Just choose deliberately, and know employers or random strangers may react in ways you don't like.
I grew up in those days when only sailors, soldiers, and bikers got tattoos. Getting a tattoo was generally considered an evil thing to do. Now my own daughter is covered with them, so I have grown accustomed to the idea that tattoos have become mainstream. But I still don't see how a tattoo makes a person look more attractive. In fact, I think most tattoos, except the very discreet ones, detract from a woman's beauty or from a man's handsomeness. And they are expensive! I can think of better ways to waste my money.