Once, a hundred years ago, I dated a woman who had a butterfly tattooed on her left breast. It looked like it was about to land on her nipple.

That’s cool. I don’t have a problem with tattoos. Really, I don’t.

It was the butterfly I had a problem with. It was not a normal butterfly. It was painted in numerous psychedelic colors and it had clawed feet and fangs. Instead of antennae it had daggers coming out of its little head and it had blood squirting out of its eyes. It looked like some vicious dragon dropped some acid then gave birth to a butterfly. It was scary looking.

I kept wondering what would happen if this woman ever got around to breast-feeding a baby. Can you imagine a little baby staring at that tattoo of a dragon/butterfly while feeding? That would surely mentally scar that baby for life. That baby could develop a serious case of lepidopterophobia (a fear of butterflies).

Maybe that woman never thought about babies when she got the tattoo. Perhaps she was trying to augment the beauty of her breast in order to attract men. I don’t know. After all, in America not many people make the connection between breasts and babies. To them, breasts are for men, not babies.

We did not date for long before we broke up. But it had nothing to do with tattoos. Really, it didn’t. Believe me, there were plenty of better reasons. But I did find that I was developing a mild case of lepidopteraphobia myself. And I couldn’t have that.