1. Tat­toos the­o­ret­i­cally could be thought­ful addi­tions to your appear­ance. Unfor­tu­nately there are thou­sands of tat­too par­lors (many open 24 hours) and peo­ple just don’t have that many thoughts. So most are stupid.
2. Tat­toos are per­ma­nent. Your motivation/blood–alco­hol level is not.
3. Tat­toos are now as edgy as a padded water­melon.

Tat­toos are an excel­lent way to turn a sin­gle drunken deci­sion into a life­time of dis­fig­ure­ment and regret, which nor­mally requires a car.  Tat­toos are asso­ci­ated with crim­i­nal gangs, the armed forces, and whiny white teenagers des­per­ate for atten­tion.  Attempts to get all three to attend a com­mon “Tat­too Con­fer­ence” have unfor­tu­nately failed.

There are some impor­tant ques­tions to ask before get­ting a tattoo:

• Have I wanted this for more than five minutes?
• Am I, at this par­tic­u­lar instant in side­real time, drunk off my face?
• Do the tat­too artist’s past works resem­ble an art class for crash-helmet testers?
• I meet the love of my life.  I romance them for months, reach­ing a point where we can com­mu­ni­cate our very deep­est emo­tions and feel that we almost share souls (awwww).  At this point, can I see myself naked and explain­ing this tattoo?