Last night when my son returned from work he mentioned that he wanted to get his ears pierced. He said that his girlfriend was willing to pierce them for him and she might do it this weekend. He wants two piercings on each ear lobe and then one in the top of the cartilage of each ear. Apparently this is how Link of Zelda fame has his ears pierced. So what that Link is not a real person but a CGI generated character for a Nintendo video game.

I told my son that since I took daughter to get her ears pierced I would shell out the same amount for him. Daughter got some fancy pants earrings so if he went with plain studs he could do all three sets. I suggested that we go to Claire’s rather than have his girlfriend do the job. This is hypocritical of me and he knows it. I had a friend pierce my ears in the locker room in high school and I suffered no infection or other ill effects plus I had a story and actually gained a little street cred at my stuffy college prep school. Street cred was not hard to come by there since no one did anything that was not already previously approved of by a committee of teachers, parents and alumni. I was eventually kicked out of this school, probably for too much street cred like wearing leg warmers or something.

Since I would prefer he not have his girlfriend pierce his ears I also mentioned that with all these viruses going around he’d be better off having them pierced under sanitary conditions. I also mentioned that piercing the cartilage in your ear hurts, and it does, I know. He would be better off if a professional with a gun pierce his cartilage rather than his girlfriend who tends to be a bit fidgety. He seemed okay with this.

And then he mentioned that he is already saving for the tattoo he is going to get when he turns 18. He wants the Zelda Triforce of Courage tattooed on his back, his whole back.

I have three tattoos, I can’t really tell him not to get a tattoo after he turns 18. My tattoos are on my ankle so during the summer they are visible. They are quotes from Virgil in Latin, which were inspired from Latin class at the stuffy college prep school. However, I got them after I turned 40 and was not applying to MIT like he plans to.

I take full responsibility for his desire to alter his body to resemble or at least celebrate Link and the Zelda video game franchise.

When I was pregnant with him I was careful, uber careful, about everything I put in my body. I didn’t drink or smoke. I gave up my beloved Diet Coke and caffeine. I stopped eating fish and shellfish. And I made sure I was getting tons of folic acid. I had suffered two miscarriages and delivered a baby girl who died shortly before birth due to neural tube defects. I didn’t want anything to go wrong with him. I was also placed on bed rest for the last half of the pregency.

Because I was on bedrest and bored out of my mind I started to play video games, The Legend of Zelda specifically. My brother found out I was playing this game and since his then wife had taken his Nintendo away from him he came over to my house during his lunch hour and played with me. His lunch hours would turn into 5 or 6 hour marathons and would only be broken up when his then wife called to have me send him home. My son was exposed to about 4 months of Zelda and even after he was born, since we still had not finished the quest, we continued playing while my son slept peacefully not more than ten feet from the TV. My son had beaten the same game, on his own, by the time he was 5 years old. I have no one to blame but myself.

I realize that people at MIT are computer wizards and might actually appreciate someone who is so commited to the Triforce that they would tattoo it on their back. I suspect he would not be the only one with a Zelda Triforce of Courage tattooed on his body. But just in case I asked him to wait until he had secured a place in college. Luckily for me he is a very easy going and rational kid, he agreed. Plus that tattoo will cost thousands of dollars and it will take him more than a year to earn the money.