This tattoo is SO not my fault

My most recent tattoo was my sixth tattoo. And since six is coincidentally the same number of marathons I’ve run, I’d decided I wouldn’t let myself get another tattoo until I’d earned it by running another marathon. That way I could better control my slow-ish descent into my mother’s nightmare career as a person with more than zero tattoos. Or a member of the notorious Trailer Park Kids street gang.

But!

I subscribe to Runner’s World magazine. Mostly because it’s really cheap. But also because it sometimes has shirtless guys on the cover. And in this day and age, it’s almost impossible to find pictures of shirtless guys. Especially on the Internets.

And since it’s Runner’s World, it’s filled with things of interest to runners. Like stretching exercises. And hydration suggestions. And shoe reviews. And directories of races. And pictures of shirtless guys. Running. With their shirts off.

And, apparently, entire articles devoted to undermining my self-control in the tattoo department. Because this month’s issue features running-inspired tattoos on people across the country. I think most of them are pretty ugly (the tattoos, not the people) … but it takes just one sexy tattoo idea to break my chain of resolve. So of course there’s one tattoo idea in this article that’s so cool I might have run right to my computer to design it for myself.

Here’s the pic of the guilty ink. It’s Roman numerals for 26 with a dot for every marathon this dude has run. And bonus! It’s right on the last little bit of skin on my body where there currently is not a tattoo:

Being a purist about these things, I of course want the full marathon-regulation extra two-tenths of a mile included in my version of the tattoo. But since I have only Microsoft Word at my disposal, my design is limited by the available Word fonts and Word’s frustrating snap-to-grid technology that won’t let me line up the dots exactly where I want them. But this should give you an idea of what I want:

Also! Since this hypothetical tattoo would hypothetically appear on some of the most painful-to-tattoo real estate on my body, I thought it might be a good idea to design an additional option that didn’t require so much ink. Or linguistic translation:

So now I’m left struggling to justify a violation of my self-imposed tattoo statute (tatute?). And to quantify how much more ink on my person that my mother’s heart can handle. And to find a time in my busy schedule to get inked and fully healed before my March cruise. And to write my acceptance speech for my Trailer Park Kids induction ceremony.