punctuated

As I sat on the 3rd floor of a four story tattoo parlour in Zürich, the tattoo artist chuckled while scrolling through google images, called up with the term "Doppelpunkt." I'd just told him that I wanted a "Doppelpunkttattoowierung" because in English, that punctuation mark shares it's name with an organ that I've been missing for nearly 20 years. And there on the screen was a drawing of a colon (or Dickdarm.)
There is already a post on this blog about the regret I have for the tattoo on my back, which I got in 1999. I still very much love the tattoo on my shoulder, which I got in 2010. I learned from the first that I should have and like the idea of a tattoo for a good long while before putting ink to skin. I first got the notion of this tattoo nearly a year ago and it made me chuckle. Then I started seriously thinking about it in earnest in the spring. I would have waited the full year of considering it, but I've got a rather largish surgery coming up early next year. When I mentioned the tattoo idea to my gastroenterologist, he chuckled and then told me that I should get it in time to be healed up for the surgery or well after the surgical wound has healed. I went for before.