For my job as an events coordinator/news editor extraordinaire, I’m in charge of organizing the annual Easter Eggstravaganza on the UM Oval, which is basically a large-scale egg hunt on campus the day before Easter. (Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any of your egg-hunt planning needs! Wait, no. Please do.)
Over the past several weeks, I’ve been ordering candy and small prizes to stuff in eggs for the hunt, mainly online. When a came across a package of 720 temporary tattoos for around 30 bucks, I figured they were a great deal and ordered five packages. And because they were advertised as CHILDREN’S tattoos, intended for use by CHILDREN, it did not even occur to me that some of them may not be appropriate for, you know, CHILDREN. Boy, was I wrong. So very, very wrong.
Based on the following sampling, I’m guessing the folks over at Oriental Trading Co.’s Temporary Tattoo Department aren’t too concerned with quality control.
First off, there were several of these Japanese-character tattoos, but most of them said things like “tiger” or “dragon,” not this:
That’s right — if it weren’t for my observant co-worker who spotted this inappropriateness, the word “sexy” would be plastered across some 6-year-old girl’s arm after she found it in an Easter egg.
Next up, several tattoos that, on their own, might not be so bad, but collectively could maybe, just maybe, encourage grade-school children to take up recreational drug use:
OK, I know that’s actually a palm tree, not a pot leaf, but when combined with a mushroom, some eight balls and three bloodshot eyes (including one that apparently has its own appendages and another with a cracked-out face), you can’t help but wonder if the people designing these things have an ulterior motive or two. I mean really, how many variations of bloodshot eyeballs do you allow in the kids’ tattoo supply before you draw the line?
And then there’s this third and final example, which is just plain racist:
Yep, that’s a Native American with a red face. I’m not even going to start on this one.
Lucky we discovered these early and I could suss out the bad ones before they went into the eggs, or I have a feeling a might not be planning an Easter egg hunt next year. Wait a minute… ahh, screw it.
Squirrel Thoughts 