Tit for Tat

This summer, like every summer, I have spent quite a lot of time at beaches or lakeside/poolside. Unlike previous years, the ratio of tattooed people versus those with "virgin skin" seems to have increased to 70:30 with an upward trend. And I'm not talking about one or two tattoos per person, but there seems to be a trend that makes me think of tattoo parlours either offering a flatrate along the lines of "get every square centimetre of your body covered for price X instead of Y per hour" or that some people must have lost a bet when they were drunk and woke up with the "art" of an amateur on their calves and chest. Some of these tattoo combinations seem rather random medleys of of e.g. a significant date, a portrait of a celebrity or some relative, a landmark, angel wings, native American headgear, some tribal ornaments, etc. Often with varying artistic merit ranging from some drawings that seem like the idle doodling of a child to some actually well-done designs on one and the same person. Speaking of doodling, some of the people I've seen walking around really remind me of a sheet of paper torn out from the notepad next to a landline phone on which you would scribble distractedly with a biro. A weird trend and I'm curious whether some of these monstrosities will be "overwritten" with another design in years to come or just fade a little (or be covered by sagging skin). Either way, not exactly a bandwagon I am ready to jump on anytime soon...