Hey, teens, thinking about doing something special before you return to school? Something that makes a statement? Something that states your individuality or whatever?

Are you thinking of getting a tattoo?

Read on first.

Six years ago, Lisa (not her real name) became so mad at her father that she decided to get back at him by getting a tattoo.

Turns out that the person she hurt the most is herself, although it was pretty much the equivalent of a kick in the groin for her father, as well. She managed to keep the tattoo — a volleyball-sized circle on her lower back — hidden from her father for a few months until the family took a winter vacation to — hello! — Hawaii.

As the family prepared to go to the beach their first day on Maui, Lisa put on her swimsuit and a well-placed towel for the inevitable unveiling ceremony. "Dad, there's no good way to tell you this, so I'll just show you," she announced as she dropped the towel.

As vacation killers go, this was worse than a sunburn, a lost wallet and food poisoning all in one.

"I had to look at that thing every day," says Lisa's dad.

And now Lisa can't even remember what prompted the anger that caused her to seek a tattoo in the first place.

Well, that might have been the end of it, kids, but it isn't. The problem is, by the time you're 23, you're not the same person you were at 17, as difficult as that is to imagine at this stage in life. Lisa is a student and a store manager, and a good one, too. She is in what is known as the REAL WORLD, which means she has to keep the tattoo under wraps when she's at work, which isn't always easy with today's midriff –revealing styles.

"I want to get rid of the tattoo, but I heard it's expensive and painful," Lisa says.

She heard right. "It's painful," says Marthea Hale, a master esthetician at Inklifters, which specializes in removing tattoos. "I won't lie about that. It hurts. It feels like a bad sunburn."

It will probably hurt even worse when you pay the bill — an average-sized tattoo costs close to $1,000 to remove.

OK, that's the bad news. The good news is that with today's laser technology, the vast majority of tattoos can be removed completely with no scarring, provided that the tattoo was done competently (without scarring) and black ink was used (other colors are difficult to remove completely).