Sit down, you're rocking the boat

Thursday, Mar. 08, 2007, 5:17 p.m.

There have been some days that I thought I'd run out of ways to piss off the Army. And then I'd remember, "Hey, I don't have a tattoo on my neck yet!"

For many years, the Army has had strict regulations governing tattoos -- what they are allowed to look like, where they may or may not be placed, which uniforms they may or may not be visible in -- and it never really bothered me. Not allowed to have it showing in a long-sleeved shirt? Okay, I'll put in on my wrist. Not allowed to have it be visible while wearing a dress uniform with pants instead of skirt? Fine, calves it is! Not allowed to include "questionable" designs or words? No big deal, I'll just make it look like I drew it up while using psychedelic drugs.

But one major part of that regulation changed about a year or so ago -- the Army finally caved, due to low enlistment numbers. "ALL RIGHT!" Uncle Sam said, exasperatedly. "You are allowed to have tattoos pretty much anywhere you fucking please, except your head or face. Or hands. But we're willing to make some exceptions for hands. Are you happy now? Will you PLEASE join the Army? Pretty please?"

Which is how I started thinking about my next bit of body art. I knew I wanted it to be somewhere it wasn't previously allowed to be (I guess I'm just like that, what can I say?), but I didn't know what it was going to be, or exactly where I could put it so that it wouldn't mess up my symmetry. (With one on each calf, one on each wrist, one on each shoulder blade, and one on each side of my lower back, I knew that if I went for an arm or a hip, my brain would demand another one on the other side, and I don't exactly have the time or money for all that at the moment.)

So! I got this:

Courtesy of the fantastic Amanda at Smiling Buddha in Savannah, who has done four of my other tattoos and just generally is awesome

It says, if you look closely, "All art is quite useless" -- the last line of Oscar Wilde's preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is one of my favorite books of all time. And before you ask, no, the irony of getting a tattoo that calls art useless did not escape me. It kind of brightens my day, in fact. Next I think I'll write FOOD SUCKS on my refrigerator.

Anyway, I got this work done on Sunday, which was the day before I had to go back to work. (Speaking of that, let's all send up a holler of joy for the fact that I didn't have to work last weekend, after all: yeehaw!) On Monday morning when I walked into the giant hangar where we were conducting our training exercise, the first person I saw was Head Boss.

He looked at me.

"Is that real?" he asked.

"Yep!" I replied.

"Does the regulation say you can have that?"

"Yep!"

Just then, the chief of staff of our division walked by.

Side note:

I had already managed to annoy the chief of staff the week before -- I had asked him if I could interview him for an article I was writing about the training using the words, "You know, the good parts, bad parts, successes, failures ..." Except apparently he doesn't like the word "failures" because he belongs to the class of douchebags which doesn't allow anything other than perfection to be acknowledged.

End side note

The chief, a colonel, stopped in his tracks and looked down at me.

"Hello, sir," I said.

"Is that real?" he asked.

"Yes it is, sir."

"Is it authorized?"

"Yes it is, sir."

He glared down at Head Boss (who is actually a bit miniature and has the kind of face that people would feel drawn to glare at anyway).

"I want a copy of that regulation on my desk in fifteen minutes!" he demanded before storming off, because he just couldn't be bothered to look it up on the internet, like all of us peasants do.

Then Head Boss, who had previously been content with just taking my word for it, began to get a bit anxious and, as they say, flip the fuck out.

"Get that regulation right now! I want to see it!"

"Okay, okay ..."

I went online and found the regulation, which clearly states that tattoos on the neck are indeed authorized. Meanwhile, everyone who worked in the giant hangar (it was mostly officers and senior enlisted soldiers; peons like me were a rare sight there) was stopping by to see what all the fuss was about and subsequently give me moral support. Except the sergeants major, of course -- nearly every one of them took me aside to inform me that I was "not professional" and also "what were you thinking, soldier?" and "you better cover that thing up." The best part was pulling the printed-out regulation out of my pocket, showing it to them, and watching their faces as they attempted to keep me from seeing their annoyance.

Ultimately, I ended up going home to get a t-shirt with a higher collar (just to keep the peace), and by the end of the day, everyone in that building knew, backward and forward, the regulation governing the content and placement of tattoos.

In other words, my work here is done.