Black linework flash design of a ribbon banner wrapped around a dagger with a ring handle, reading I'M GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT.

Banner reading I'm getting too old for this

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

A monoline drawing of a ribbon banner coiled around a dagger with a ring-shaped handle, set on a plain white background. The banner carries the slogan I'M GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIT in bold capitals, with the letters following the curve of the ribbon. The design is solid black on white with no shading or colour, and the composition is centred with the dagger running diagonally through the banner.

Lettering Banner Ribbon Dagger Slogan Text

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The Whitsun pageant committee wanted a dagger that would frighten the children in the back row, and they wanted it by Thursday. I told Mrs Haverstock the blade had been ground to a sliver before she was born, but she only tapped her clipboard and said Mr Fenwick had promised. Mr Fenwick had promised everything since the war, and most of it was still in the post.

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So I took the old dagger down from the nail above the bench, the one with the ring handle my father forged for the Mayor's men, and I set it on the wheel. Outside, the coronation bunting had gone grey in the drizzle. Somebody had painted GOD SAVE OUR TOWN across the front of the Co-op, and the letters ran uphill like they were trying to get away from the cobbles. My knees ached in sympathy. The wheel hummed, the sparks came off in a fan, and I thought about my father's hands, which were never still.

Mrs Haverstock came back at dusk with the ribbon scroll for the herald to carry. She wanted HONOUR THY TOWN lettered on it in gold. I took the brush, dipped it, and wrote instead the thing I had been muttering all week over the grinding. The ribbon curled round the blade as I painted it, and the letters followed the bends the way my father taught me, one stroke at a time.

She read it twice, then sat down hard on a nail keg and laughed until she had to wipe her eyes with her cardigan sleeve. The lamp caught the edge of the dagger, bright enough to read by, and the paint was still wet when she folded the ribbon away for Thursday.