Inka Dinka Don't

We can talk more about Las Vegas in a minute. Right now I want to tell you what happened this morning. There’s a particularly annoying old man at my regular gym. I’ve mentioned him before, but not for a while. He dyes what’s left of his hair a sort of dull cerise, and half of what he does have he sticks straight up. If it was longer it would be a comb over. It’s about finger length. It looks both silly and sad. He also has a bugaboo: tattoos.

As you might imagine, there’s a lot of visible ink in a gym. I like ink. But somehow this man decided that my training partner and I both loathe it as much as he does. He complains to us (not to anyone else) about all the tattoos. He makes up for his mumbling with volume and repetition. We get it. He doesn’t like tattoos.

Today, after months of this senseless ranting, he said. “I have a tattoo.”

Then he showed us the numbers on his forearm.