If you’re hell-bent on getting a stupid tattoo, at least make it a temporary one

I’ll never forget this one time that my high school girlfriend came to visit me in college during my sophomore year. It was an on again, off again relationship that I won’t bore you with (mostly off-again), but on this particular visit, she proudly told me — before “hello,” before “how’re you doing?” — that she had just got a tattoo. She was so happy. And then she pulled up the back of her shirt to reveal the lamest, ugliest lower back tattoo that the world has ever seen. It was some dopey yellow and blue butterfly that looked like a bruise, like she had been in a car wreck on the drive over and the wounds were still fresh. Like someone had punched her tailbone the day before. I had to rub lotion on it for her all goddamn weekend, and its profound, untrammeled stupidity mocked me. I’ve hated all tattoos ever since.

The butterfly in the above ad, the one right next to the cobra, reminded me of it. A lot. Lesson: If you’re going to get a tramp stamp, don’t get a blue and yellow butterfly. Or at least make it a temporary one. (Note: Tattooz were also inserts in any number of comic books, including the highly desirable first appearance of the Hobgoblin in The Amazing Spider-Man #238. They were often removed, rendering the comics “incomplete” for collectors. Which gives us a reason to hate temporary tattoos/Tattooz as well.)