I am an unmarked man. That is to say, I am one of three, possibly four, tattooless people left in the United States.

Years ago, a kid could get sent home from school just for drawing the Batman logo on his arm with a Bic pen.

(The Bic worked out OK, but Mom about scrubbed my skin off when I used permanent markers.)

Back then, one of the main sideshow attractions at fairs and circuses was The Amazing Tattooed Man. Or Lady.

These days, the sideshow freaks are people like me — no tats. I’m just an oversized blank canvas. Except, that is, for a slight smudge in the area of my shirt pocket. Leaky pens. Men wear undershirts to mop up leaky ink pens and uncapped Sharpies that we’ve dropped into our dress shirt pockets.

It wasn’t always this way. I wore tattoos all the time when I was 6. They came out of Cracker Jacks boxes.

You moistened the tiny applique, pressed it onto your skin, and voila, you had a tattoo of a butterfly, a rainbow or a puppy.

By second grade, I was done with the sissy stuff. We boys used art class markers to draw skulls on each other’s arms. Or Batman. Or a skull wearing Batman’s cowl.

As noted above, while we knew these were masterpieces of art of the highest order, neither the art teacher nor our mothers were impressed. Our moms threatened us with baths, a prospect that didn’t impress us.

Nowadays, it seems like not just dads, but everybody’s moms wear tattoos. And not the Cracker Jacks washaway kind, either.

My daughter, the mother of my teenage grandson, sports a colorful Little Mermaid scene near her ankle. She said it happened during a tattoo party.

My mom went to Tupperware parties and candle parties and home decorating parties. Now moms throw tattoo parties.

Despite peer pressure, I have resolutely remained un-tatted, and for a very good reason — needles.

Whenever a needle is involved in an activity, I don’t care to participate.

My mom attempted to teach me how to sew. By the third time I stabbed myself with the threaded vicious weapon that my own mother gave me, I gave up the vocation as too risky. I briefly considered becoming a nudist for fear that whoever manufactured the clothes I wore forgot to remove all needles. I gave up this idea when I remembered that all of our pine trees were festooned with needles.

As I grew older, the more difficult it became to avoid needles. Age introduces more and more medical personnel into one’s life, and they all love needles. One white-coated person or another always seems to be hovering over me, drooling at the chance to inflict me with shots or to suck my blood or to boost my system with this or that — all of which must be accomplished with needles.

Maybe I can’t resist all of those silvery pokes of pain, but I’m sure not signing up for an optional life as a pin cushion. Which is to say — just say no to tattoos. They embrace needles.

Also, my body insists on changing shape as the years roll along. Some parts have expanded beyond recognition, such as the region around my belt; other pieces seem to be trying to implode into obscurity, such as where I used to pack biceps.

My fleshy blank canvas would stretch or scrunch any image jabbed onto me out of shape like a picture imprinted on Silly Putty.

So I remain a societal anomaly, an inkless wonder. Except for the smudge on my chest where my shirt pocket sits. I believe it’s beginning to look a bit like a skull. In the Batman’s cowl.

Mark Burt at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.