Someone who you don’t like saw the image you want to get permanently emblazoned on your bod and said, “I love it.”

Which areas of skin age the most gracefully? you ask for yourself. You think about this for a while, staring at people’s wrinkly under arms until you feel too creepy to continue any longer.

Who can you ask about skin that ages best? A dermatologist? Any old person? You think about locating one of these people.

You discover that desirable tattoo artists require reservations. Planning to make a reservation is exhausting.

But, of course, you want a tattoo administered by a desirable tattoo artist, perhaps the most desirable tattoo artist in your urban center. You understand that she will probably have the longest waiting list. You hate waiting.

They have an online form for reservations and you refuse to engage with those on principle.

Another acceptable place only lists a phone number, so you have to wait until you’re in a “phone mood” (i.e. once every never).

Which arm?

You heard a stick and poke horror story involving some ambiguous, festering disease. Planning-hiatus for at least two months.

New freckle on designated area. HUH.

In the middle of a Guernica interview of Grayson Perry, you are confronted with the illusion of free will, re: tattoos:

"There’s a desperation in middle-class people to try to be individual. I think it’s an illusion on the whole, because curiously they all end up being an individual in the same way. Because not many people are creative, really. They’re kind of individualistic but within a very narrow bandwidth of what is acceptable at the time in fashion, or what they’ve seen in magazines. Genuine maverick taste is quite rare. Say someone chooses their tattoo, right, they have a tattoo. They’re a groovy person and they have a tattoo. The real decision they made was to have the tattoo. It’s not what the tattoo is. All tattoos are basically the same. But it’s having the tattoo. They all mean the same thing, the tattoo. What is on the design is bollocks. It’s squiggly blue lines that you have on your arm."

Navy ink! Why don’t more people do that? Maybe there is a secret reason you should look into first.

Will it look dumb upside-down?

Someone in middle school told you that you would know that you really wanted a tattoo if you had the dedication to draw it on yourself every single day for one month, but the tattoo you want is too complicated to draw yourself, so.

You have a lot of beach-time plans and a sunburn would probably really ruin your freshly punctured skin, wouldn’t it?

It’s nearly sweater weather, so no one would see it for the next few months, anyway.

You see someone with a Sylvia Plath quote tatted on her wrist (“Wear your heart on your skin in this life”) and this bums you out immensely for secret reasons.

You promised your friend he could come with you, but he’s WOOFing in Spain all summer. Best to wait until he returns.

Your parents are visiting and that’s nice and you’d rather not have a whole thing.

Childhood friend’s wedding photos in three weeks. You’d rather not have a whole thing.

You see the image you want on someone’s shoulder on Instagram. Start over!

You hear Smokey Robinson’s “Tattoo” and you go into a playlist-rabbit hole for songs about tattoos that satisfies a need for tattoos. Emerge six days later.

Holiday season will be here in three months and your poor grandmother shouldn’t need to worry about anything.

You know that they’re addictive, so you should probably plan out what your second tattoo will be.

Maybe you should plan three through eight while you’re in planning stages.

Maybe you should wait for a dramatic life occurrence to occur to you, so you have a truly bolstering motivation.

You realize people will stop telling you what they actually think about the tattoo you want when it becomes a tattoo you have. Permanence really changes things.

It’s raining.

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