Goals for the Future

"When I turn twenty-one, I'm going to get a tattoo," she said with silly conviction.

"What are you going to get?"

"I'm going to drink a bottle of Sailor Jerry's rum and get a tattoo of the woman inside."

I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Sailor Jerry's rum?  I never heard of it.  Is it any good?"  I'm a prick, I guess.  I was already thinking it was a kid's drink.

"Hell yea!  It's a spiced rum and it's good.  On the inside of the bottle is a pin-up girl.  I won't know what it looks like until I drink the rum.  Then I'm going to get a tattoo of it."

"Where are you going to put it?"

"I don't know," she sneered.  "It depends on what it looks like, what shape it is.  I may get a pair of fingers pinching my nipple instead, though.  Tommy and I are going to get each other's thumbprints tattooed on our hands, too."

"Romantic."

You got to have goals, I thought.

Of course, I had to buy a bottle of the stuff.  I knew it would bad, and I was right.  But the story behind it all is pretty interesting.  I know because I Googled it.  Norman Collins was a sailor for half his life and a tattoo artist for sailor's the other half.  After he died, a group of people wanted to memorialize him by making money off his name, so they started a clothing company.  Later, though, they brought out the sailor's favorite drink--Rum.  And then the myth.

If you are a sophisticated drinker, I have to tell you never ever buy a bottle of this.  You will puke from all the foo-foo stuff they put into it.  For myself, I am going to give the shit away to the people who told me about it and tell her to get the girl on the inside of the bottle tattooed across her thigh.  I won't do that, but I will give them the rum.

Perhaps Parrot Heads will like the stuff.  As Stephen Colbert says, they are a reason never to go to Florida.