The number of young adults walking around with piercings, tatoos, and those curious discs in their ear lobes continues to grow. Whereas tatoos were once popular only among cannibals and sailors, todays suburban tatoo fashionistas come from all walks of life and sport technicolor displays of fantasy art that make a point of in-your-face incongruence. And with much of it on locations where the wearer can’t view it themselves.
I can’t help but imagine rest homes of the future where geezers and codgers will dodder in their twilight years, festoons of ear hair sprouting over gaping holes in their pendulous ear lobes like Amazonian witch doctors. The urine scented hallways will be populated with crones and the occasional geezer sporting once provocative tats, now blurred with age, protruding from private locations and shared only with the floor nurse.
It seems to me that the tatoo money would be better spent on a round of antibiotics after a trip to Phuket. At least it would have been a genuine experience of life on the edge rather than just an illustration of one.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
It’s inconceivably worse than that. Scroll down…
http://talklikeaphysicist.com/
A job aspirant proudly displays a tattooed palytoxin ankle bracelet. Interviewer points: “Is that stereocenter inverted?”
Actually, earlobe gauges heal back to normal ear-piercing size reasonably quickly. A friend went back from 00 to nothing. If I leave my 4s out for a week, I’m fighting to put 8s in.
Well, that is interesting. The recuperative power of the common earlobe. So, I take it that the smaller the number, the larger the … object. It makes my eyes water just thinking about how it must feel to put those things in.
This regression to tribalism and mysticism will become greater as our society offers fewer and fewer opportunities to the young. It is a sign of defeat, and rejection of the false prosperity offered by the tube. They’re figuring out those six figure jobs are ONLY offered to Harvard grads and the rest get the shaft. Even a dribbling idiot can become Pres if he springs from the right loins.
Expect to see more UFO sightings and kidnappings by Bigfoot. My own favorite is Mothman, which is way overdue for a sighting.
“Even a dribbling idiot can become Pres if he springs from the right loins.”
Ooooh, I like that.