Lost

"Do you want to stand in the shade, Pale One?" I asked as we waited. I waved Christine out of the sun and motioned towards my sliver of shade.

"Naw, I'm good," she said, looking at her arms. "Probably this is good for me."

The plain white sign on the door read, "Gone for oysters - Be back in an hour," and was signed by someone of importance, I assumed, though the scribble was fairly illegible. In any case, I didn't have the patience to read the scribble on sign that basically assumed I would have the fortitude to endure the humid Texas heat, the sun blaring down its stifling inferno, for an hour. Plus we had gone and come back an hour ago, more or less, and were no longer amused by the idea of oyster eaters at a tattoo parlor.

There were six of us standing there, sizing each other up. By far, Christine and I were the oldest ones there and probably the only ones with steady salaries and retirement plans. "Kids," I thought. "I wonder if they're old enough to be here?" That's when they struck up a brief conversation:

"Are you here to get a tattoo?" a girl began as she squinted up at me. I wasn't sure what she meant by the question which in my head sounded awfully like, "Are you here to get a tattoo? You seem pretty old. Maybe you're here to sell someone a time share in Florida, the land of retirees. The dry cleaners next door has old people in it. Try there." I forced my lips into a smile.

"Um. Well yeah. I mean I'm adding to one I already have.. So.. is this place worth the wait?"

"Yeah," a boy said, "Absolutely."

The girl continued, "I got my first one here, and see? Look at the work they do. It's amazing." I glanced at the tattoo on the girl's arm and nodded. "I got mine done by Ian," she squealed.

"And Crush did mine," the boy said.

"My first one was done by Crush, but I think Bones is the best," said another one. They all nodded in agreement. "Who do you want to do yours?"

As I looked at the faces of the kids in front of me, I wondered what the hell I was doing there.
"I don't know," I sighed.

I reasoned that I was the only one rational enough to know what I wanted - truly - in a respectable, mature sense. I have lived long enough to understand that body art is forever, and that when parts of my body start to sag, the art will sag too. That's why I had chosen to adorn a strategically firm location. I had even remembered to wear a pretty bra knowing that I would have to pull my shirt off, and I had planned some witty repartee regarding my pregnancy stretch marks. That's what mature people do, isn't it? We rationalize, convince ourselves of something, overcompensate for our flaws, and make excuses.. Right?

Who was I kidding?

I had decided that the kids in front of me were the immature ones when they were more comfortable in their skin than I will ever be. They were ok with waiting for how ever long it took because time didn't really matter to them. They weren't treating me like a lost grown-up aimlessly roaming on their turf. I had projected that. They were not looking down their noses at me. I was at them.

I was done waiting at that realization. I turned around and walked to the car, overcompensating for my embarrassment, my excuse being that waiting for wayward oyster eaters was stupid.

This post was inspired by the Loose Bloggers Consortium, a small and feisty(!) global community. We write weekly on a common topic (Lost, this week) and post responses - all of us together, simultaneously, from all over the world. (Lovely!) Please visit Anu, Ashok, Conrad, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria and Ramana for other wonderful posts.