Stretching the canvass rarely improves the picture

I believe in the First Amendment.

 

Express yourself, baby: go for it.

 

No one can strip you of your right to tell the world who you are by the way you live your life.

 

But remember this one thing.

 

Freedom of expression means I get to speak my mind as well.

 

So here goes.

 

There's a new trend in  ear wear.

 

You stretch your earlobe and insert a large disk into the lobe.

 

I remember seeing something like this in  National Geographic when I was a kid.

 

I was terrified by photos of African tribesmen who painfully stretched their  lobes.

 

The average human earlobe is no bigger than a dime.

 

The other day I went to a Subway sandwich shop.

 

The pleasant young man who  took my order had stretched his lobe  about the length of a Q-tip.

 

Inside the elongated lobe was an ivory  colored circular object of some sort.

 

Even more bizarre was that the object had some real weight to it.

 

The weighted lobes were sort of flopping about whenever elephant man turned his head.

 

I was calculating the amount of head swinging that would lead to the ears disconnecting themselves from his empty skull altogether.

 

This can't be good for the sub sandwich business.

 

Remind me to send a note to Jared.

 

I couldn't stop staring at it.

 

Sorry.

 

I think this is stupid and distracting.

 

That's my opinion and I'm allowed to state it.

 

So   cut it out.

 

You're calling attention to yourself with this weird form of body mutilation.

 

Here's another one.

 

Fat people with tattoos.

 

Listen, I could stand to lose a few pounds myself.

 

But the Inkwell was intended for a slim canvas.

 

I'm grossed out by dragons and eagles who live on a beach.

 

A huge gigantic jiggly beach that houses a potential heart attack.

 

I heard  that Orson Welles once had a tattoo of his academy award emblazoned on his backside early in his career.

 

In his later years, Oscar must have appeared as a huge golden Buddha on Orson's outsized bum.

 

Of course, like Orson's, your tattoo may have arrived when you were young and svelte.

 

But Father Time marches on and metabolism slows.

 

Lots of us get bigger and now there's lots of me.

 

But lots of "Lady Luck" with you the size of the truck?

 

Yuck!

 

Man, it feels good to get that off my chest.

 

If only you'd get that picture of Skeletor off your thunder thigh.

 

And that once noble drawing of Jesus on your formerly muscular  bicep calls to mind  the singer Meatloaf on a bad night.

 

So, there you have it.

 

You expressed yourself with your ears that look like silly  putty  you've been pulling on like so much taffy.

 

And you have become a living  having-difficulty-breathing display of  super-sized epidermis art.

 

And I just want you to keep both out of my sight.

 

Is that too much to ask?

 

I don't think so.

 

Have a nice day.