Kat Von D(olphin)

Ah, summer. The time of year when lady feet and tramp stamps come out to play.

I've been noticing a lot of tattoos as the weather grows warmer and I saw one today that could not go overlooked.

I saw a woman wearing white leggings (a topic I refuse to discuss because it's just too easy) with a flash of aqua peering out to say hello. When I took a second glance, I noticed that the aqua was actually in the form of two dolphins, arced into an oval, noses touching in a kiss.

Wow. I think some hippie 15-year-old version of myself had a sticker of this design against a backdrop of mood crystals affixed to her bedroom mirror.

I can't possibly imagine a tattoo design more horrendously cliché than the dolphin. And I say this with authority. Because my own tattoo ranks third on the clichéd tat list: butterfly (long story, not as lame as it seems, I have no regrets).

And smack between butterfly and dolphin? Well, the men folk need to have their day on the cliché list, right? Right. And so, number two is, of course, Taz.

But back to the dolphins.

I remember several girls from my youth who were dolphin girls. These dolphin girls are like horse girls, except horse girls have usually had some experience with horses, which justifies their horse-infused locker decor. But dolphin girls, especially dolphin girls in suburban Pennsylvania, don't really have a leg to stand on.

Dolphin girls were always a little mystical. Like into tarot cards and crystal necklaces and doodling ankhs on their notebooks. Yes, I had a similar phase once, minus the dolphins.

I never really understood the connection between dolphins and the mystical realm. Maybe it's so mystical that a non-believer can’t comprehend. That must be it. I bet the chick with the white leggings and the pock marks could explain it to me.

But as groovy as dolphins are, I bet that kids these days aren't so into them anymore. With the mainstreaming of Goth culture (thank you Chris Kattan and your job at the Cinnabun for enlightening a generation), I guess dolphins aren't dark enough anymore to channel the rage of millenial youth.

So is the dolphin tattoo a cliche of the past? Will the dolphin bumper stickers slowly fade away? Will we need to embrace a new sea mammal as our homage to white trash?

Man, I hope not. Sea World will be a lot less fun for my nonexistant Goth kids.