Pizza is more than just America’s favorite food. It’s a cheesy, saucy symbol of community, an ode to the local pizza dens and malls and hangouts that bring us together. (Why do you think we say “home slice”?)

Punk bands like The Bouncing Souls and Horse the Band have written songs about the famous flatbread, which has become the ironic mascot of skaters, slackers, and all fun-loving youth.

There’s a gleeful irreverence about a pizza tattoo, especially one that incorporates tough punk imagery. Pizza tattoos subvert the solemnity of tattoo culture, where skulls and barbed wire and love poetry are the norm.

A slice of pizza cleverly combined with a dagger, an all-seeing eye, or a sailor-esque ribbon of text is memorable and hilarious. Plus, you have endless puns at your disposal: “In Pizza We Crust,” “Take Another Little Pizza My Heart,” etc.

Pizza tattoos can employ a lot of appealing textures: melting, dripping cheese, a puffy crust, and of course, pepperoni and colorful vegetables.

There’s also an interesting geometrical aspect to pizza-the triangle of the individual, the circle of the whole. If you want to get a matching tattoo with a loved one, pizza slices are a cool, decidedly non-sappy idea.

Pizza is an American tradition, a cheese-covered icon of friendship and mischief. A pizza tattoo is punk rock with a sense of humor.