McDonald's receipt replica on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A forearm carries a realistic tattoo of a McDonald's till receipt, complete with the golden arches logo at the top, a store address, phone number and itemised food lines with prices. The text and lines are rendered in crisp black ink with no shading, and the paper edges are drawn to look like a printed slip. The receipt fills most of the frame against a silver foil background.

Forearm Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ruth worked the late till at the Gilded Arch on Harbour Street, where the receipts curled out of the printer like tongues. Most people tore theirs off and dropped them in the bin by the door. Mr Pellow never did. Every Tuesday at twenty-five to eight he ordered a cheeseburger, a small cola and a vanilla shake, paid in exact coppers, and held out his hand for the slip.

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"Keep it for me," he'd say, and she did, because she liked the way the time and the total sat in the same small type, tidy as a bus timetable. He folded each one into a leather wallet that had gone soft as a glove. Ruth never asked why. She assumed a daughter in Leeds, or a wife who had once kept the lists, the way some people keep ticket stubs from concerts they can't quite remember.

Then one Tuesday in March he ordered for two. Two cheeseburgers, two colas, and an extra portion of fries marked "for later". He stood at the counter longer than he needed to, looking at the door. Halfway through his total the printer ran out of paper, and she had to fumble a new roll into the slot. When she looked up, he had gone, leaving his coins in a neat stack on the tray.

The next Tuesday she printed his order anyway, the same as always, and slid it into the bin with the others. Then, because nobody was watching, she wrote beneath the total in biro: Thank you for visiting. Come back soon. She left the slip on the tray for whoever came next, and under the strip light the arches printed across its top looked almost like someone holding the door open.