Daily Inspiration Quote by Aaron Allston

A throwaway line like this is doing a lot of quiet work: it turns trauma into a commodity and then treats the whole transaction like a quick errand. “Tat” reads as shorthand for tattoo, but also as a deliberately cheap-sounding noun, the kind of word you’d use for junk in a bargain bin. Pair that with “trade it in” and you get a deadpan fantasy of return policies applied to permanence. The joke lands because tattoos are supposed to be commitment theater; this speaker punctures the romance and admits the panic underneath.

Allston, writing in a tradition of genre fiction that prizes banter, uses the question format to sharpen the comedy. It’s not “I regret this,” which would invite sentiment. It’s “Where can I get some…?” which frames identity as a purchase, and “I’d like to trade it in,” which frames identity as reversible. That’s the subtext: the self as something you can acquire, display, and then discard when the narrative (or your life) shifts.

Contextually, Allston’s novels often let humor carry emotional truth without pausing for confession. This line suggests a character trying to keep control by turning discomfort into logistics. If you can reduce a bad decision or a painful marker to a customer-service problem, you can avoid naming what it really is: shame, grief, a past self you don’t recognize, or a membership badge in a story you want to exit. The wit isn’t ornamental; it’s armor.