Black ink script lettering on an upper arm showing a crossed-out name above the words oops and I meant Hollie, in a freehand script style.

Crossed-out name with 'oops I meant' lettering

Lettering · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a black ink tattoo on the outer upper arm. A script name is struck through with two heavy black lines, with the words oops, I MEANT and a quoted name in a looser handwritten script beneath it. The linework is bold and even, with no shading, and the background shows a white sleeveless top and a blue and white logo.

Lettering Upper arm Lettering Script 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

Right, pull that stool up, because this is the one I tell when the kettle's on and nobody's booked in till two. Gavin Roper came into my parlour above the chip shop on Mill Street one wet Saturday in August, dripping onto my lino, with a biro drawing folded in his back pocket. The name on it was Megan, in the fancy copperplate the lads all seem to think means forever. I charged him forty quid, told him to sit still, and he did, bless him, right up until the needle hit the first loop of the M.

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That was the year he talked the whole way through. Megan had a laugh like a car alarm, he said, and she left the bath full of cold water and never once said sorry. He'd promised his mates at the Lion and Anchor that she was the one. I said the ink doesn't care who you love, and worked the letters bold and even, no shading, the way he'd asked, because a name should be easy to read across a pub.

Eleven months later he was back with a fresh reference and a new name. Hollie worked the till at the bakery on the market square and had once slipped him a free sausage roll with a wink. He didn't want a cover-up. He wanted a correction. So I laid the strike across Megan, two heavy lines and a little flourish at the end because he insisted, and then he asked me to add the rest in a looser hand, the sort you'd use on a card. He wanted people to see he'd made a mistake and owned it, which I thought was the most honest thing he'd said in a year.

Hollie came in the following spring to ask who'd done it. I told her to ask him. She read it over the counter, shook her head slowly, and bought a sausage roll she didn't want. Every few weeks now somebody sits in that same chair with a name they're certain of and asks how long the lines will last. I tell them ink is patient. It's the only thing in the room that never once pretends it didn't happen.