A couple days ago, I saw an article about a tattoo artist who was told he couldn’t attend Career Day at his daughter’s school because the principal had received complaints the year before about his profession, which they said, encouraged kids to adopt unsavory lifestyle choices.
It is well established here that I am not a fan of tattoo. I don’t personally care if others want to cover their entire bodies with tattoos. Whatever floats your boat. Will I date you? Sure, if I think I can do the horizontal mambo without taking you out in public too many times. I will even marry you if you have a lovely tattoo that doesn’t show when we’re out. But sorry, I’m not going to do the long term with anyone whose fall back career would be a carnie side show.
Now, don’t hate on me. As I said, this is a personal preference. I don’t care what others do in their lives. I am way beyond that. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why I voted to legalize marijuana and same sex marriage in this state. If that what makes you happy, go for it. Who am I to deny it?
This doesn’t mean that I still don’t think of opportunities in this world, and last night, there was the perfect storm of opportunity.
I was watching The Voice and up popped a commercial on dental implants. It’s a place where you can get a new set of teeth in a day. They just grind down the old ones and slap on some new ones in their place. What a racket!
Right after that, they did a commercial for a tattoo show. One of the endless reality shows that cost next to nothing to make and that people readily tune into because we are a voyeuristic society, a bit prurient, always wanting to peek in on the seedier side of life, whatever we individually think is seedy.
And that got me thinking. What if you could combine the two arts – dental and inking?
I looked over at the Janmeister and said, people could get a tattooth. It would be like scrimshaw.
What I didn’t know until the next morning is that this is indeed a real art form. There are Tattooth artists already out there, creating little miniature works of art for your teeth.
No, I am not making this up. It seems to be a trend that began last year. Steven Heward is the pioneer of this new art form, where you can conceivably have the Mona Lisa inked onto your tooth so you truly can have a Mona Lisa smile.
Yes, that’s Abraham Lincoln on a tooth. You can get one any time you like, I have discovered.
Unlike a tattoo, a tattooth is much easier to change out. If you got a tattooth with your boyfriend’s face on it and he breaks up with you, you can simply go get a new tattooth with your new boyfriend’s face and swap them out.
That’s because these dentalpreneurs are using implants to do their art. They don’t ink you for hours in a chair. Instead, you pick your tattooth, get an initial fitting, let the dentartist do his thing, and come back to have it installed. No fuss, no muss and you can change your mouth art as often as you want and your bank account can afford.
I will overlook for the moment that these people actually want to go to a dentist voluntarily. Sure, it would be cool to have an entirel art gallery in your mouth. A Monet on your K-9, Da Vinci on a bicuspid. You could even go totally thematic and switch your toothpaste to Rembrandt.
Me, I’m still waiting for the technology to go one step better, then finally I may get my own tattooth. While it would be cool to have a skull and crossbones on my incisor, I think it would cause even more career retardation than I’ve already experienced in my life. Yes, you are judged by your appearance I have come to find out, and while I could easily get a job in a head shop here in Seattle with such a tooth, there is a snowball’s chance in hell I would have landed my marketing position with the state.
And hence, the next innovation. They need to make these teethtoohs plug and play. Like having a bunch of Scrabble tiles, you could switch out the messages according to your whim. One day you could go a little rock and roll and have your front fours laden with the members of KISS. The next day you could be in a singles bar. You hit it off with a slightly drunken babe and then you show those pearly whites – with your phone number on your uppers and lowers.
I can see all sorts of potential here. Imagine for a moment that we could just plug and play our teeth. Many years ago when I worked for the bank, I would have loved this convenience.
I could have walked into Ellen Morgan’s office and instead of giving her the bad news verbally, I could have just smiled at her with my sh** eating grin and she would have gotten the message instantly. Across my teeth would be five simple letters – I Q U I T.
The only caviate would be that I’d have to make sure I quit before I had lunch. I wouldn’t want the message mired by a piece of spinach stuck between my teeth, covering the second ‘I’. Knowing how ditzy she was, she’d just think I was bragging about my stunning good looks as I smiled at her, brandishing the message “I QUT.”
No matter. I won’t be getting a tattooth any time soon. It’s just not something I can really sink my teeth into.
In the Emerald City, wondering why anyone would get a David Letterman tattooth (and yes, they have them),
– Robb