It doesn’t matter if you’re getting a tiny party tat or capping a years-long journey to finish a body suit, every tattoo session ends the exact same way—with the tattooer reminding you to take care of your new ink. 

When you’ve been tattooed more times than you can count, it’s easy to shrug off this advice. Which is exactly what Bam Margera did after his most recent tattoo, and now he’s paying the consequences. 

As the former “Jackass” star explains, not taking care of his tattoo led to a staph infection. “I deserve it,” Margera wrote in the post, “and it fucking hurts very bad.”

The tattoo is written in Farsi and it says “Navid,” which means “great news.” The irony is almost as painful as the infection. 

We like to think of this as a teaching moment for everybody going in to get tattooed. Keep your fresh tattoo clean. Do not go swimming, particularly not in open water. And keep that piece out of the sun while it’s healing. 

Margera appears to be on the mend and should be doing fine in no time, but the bad news is that his tattoo is likely wrecked. To paraphrase from the disclaimer that used to appear before a certain television program featuring Mr. Magera: “Inked must insist that no one attempt to recreate or re-enact any tattoo aftercare procedures performed on this tattoo.”