During my dating years, my credo was, "Never ask a woman out who has more than one hole in each ear."
All I can say is that it worked for me, and I had hoped to pass this nugget on to my children. In looking around, however, I realize this will never happen; scarcely anyone these days, male or female, remains content with merely a single earring.
I admit that, fashion-wise, I am a something less than a risk-taker. If you catch me wearing a tie with more than two colors in it, you can bet it was purchased for me and that I had to seek help matching it. Piercing an ear lobe, let alone any other body part, would be totally out of the question for me.
While I would not dream of foisting my attitudes upon the rest of the population, I cannot help feeling just a bit awkward when faced with a situation where I am, socially, expected to acknowledge such accouterments. What am I supposed to say when someone stands in front of me, their body impaled in various obvious yet unusual places, and all I can think is "Ouch"?
Years ago, when a tattooing fad swept my office, I had no trouble offering appropriate comments on the new skin decorations:
"Nice rose, Barbara," I would say. Or, "Nice rose, Jennifer," or "Nice rose, Susan."
Today, I find I cannot quite bring myself to declare, "My, but that's a lovely spike you have thrust through your tongue." Or, "Most people wouldn't choose brass studs quite so large in their eyebrows, but you manage to make it work." Or, "Gosh, Bob, those nipple rings really look, um, manly."
Intellectually, I understand that, having gone through the expense and pain of putting them there, these people must want the attention. Yet I cannot help treating body jewelry as something you're supposed to ignore but can't help staring at.
About a week ago, while at a trade show, I was approached by a fetching young woman taking a marketing survey for a certain company. Launching into her spiel, my attention, my world, my entire universe, became focused on the silver hoop dangling from her nose. I never heard a word she said. Wondering how she reacted to sneezing and airport metal detectors, I mumbled something about being late for a train and hurried off, the image of that ring and the company's name linked indelibly in my mind.
And now, I understand, branding is coming into vogue.
No longer appeased by the mere stapling of metal objects through increasingly exotic portions of their bodies, men and women are opting to have designs actually burned into their flesh. As a form of torture, this practice has been banned in nearly every nation on earth, yet these people pay others to do it to them. I just know that the first time I encounter one of these fashion accessories I'm going to blurt out something like, "What happened? Back into a hot stove?"
I have resigned myself to the fact that my outmoded maxim is not longer worth passing on, but I do wonder what counsel I will be able to offer my children besides "Don't date anyone who has a ring through their nose and a brand on their butt without first making certain they're not an Angus Bull"?
