Mike Tanier:

CHILD: Don’t tattoos look ugly when you get old?

PARENT: Everything looks ugly when you get old. Look at me: I am in my early 40s, but without a shirt on I look like a trash bag full of stale pudding, covered in barber’s clippings. Would a dragon on my shoulder make a lick of difference? If anything, it might distract attention to the fact that I look like a manatee and instead send a different message, like “I was cool and interesting once.”

Haha. I forget where, but I recently heard this “Ew, tattoos, what about when you’re 75?” sentiment expressed again, by someone who otherwise did not appear to be a drooling idiot. I say “again” with that incredulous tone, because I thought most of the inane objections to tattoos had run their course over the last couple decades as they’ve become increasingly mainstream. But no, good point, you’re right; I mean, I wouldn’t want anything to distract from the natural beauty of liver-spotted, blemished, saggy old-folk’s skin. That is, assuming that I arrive at old age having successfully navigated between the Scylla of disease and the Charybdis of dementia, yes, I’m totally sure that I’ll still be concerned with adolescent standards of vanity and maintaining my beach bod. Christ.