- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
Signature Irrelevant
I've always had bad penmanship. Always. I even got a D in that class in the second or third grade. And that was back when I was actually trying to have good penmanship. Ever since then, my scrawling has gotten progressively worse.
I justify this poor skill as being unneeded in today's world. It is a relic, so why bother? It's the same logic I use for not knowing how to ride a horse. Horse riding was a critical skill 100 years ago, but not so much today.
The same goes for penmanship. I don't write this blog in longhand. I type it on a computer.
The last time I put any significant pen to paper was probably when my wife and I got married and we wrote our thank you notes. That was over 16 years ago.
For me, typing is far easier and -- unlike the results of my penmanship -- I'm never left scratching my head wondering just what the heck it was that I exactly scribbled down on some legal pad.
Was it a name? A phone number? A brilliant idea worth billions?
It's anyone's guess since if I can't decipher my scrawl, then no one else can either.
And so I write very little, except for my signature. Sign checks. Sign paperwork. Sign this or that credit card receipt. Sign. Sign. Sign.
I hate signing my name and my signature probably attests to it. I get to Holl and the rest of my name tends to be a blur of ink. Unless of course I'm using one of those infernal machines that capture your signature.
I think UPS or Fedex first started using them sometime in the 1990s. They would deliver a package requiring a signature and you would sign the screen of their portable computer. It was kind of novel although the capture didn't really work that well then or -- for that matter -- now.
When I sign one these devices, you might be able to recognize the B in Brad and the H in Hollerbach. That is all. Otherwise, they tend to make my poor penmanship look even worse.
Not long after the shipping companies started collecting signatures like this all the big retailers followed suit. Everywhere you go and every time you buy anything with a credit card you have to sign on a little screen with the special stylus.
I really hate it.
It is such an irrelevant step. You don't have to sign when you buy something from Amazon.com or from Ebay or when you call QVC and order Today's Special Value. You have to give your credit card number and the expiration date and often the 3-digit security code that appears on the back of your card. Occasionally, you might be asked for your billing zip code.
But Visa and MasterCard don't care about the signature. It is irrelevant. It is unnecessary. It is not used to check the veracity of anything. When credit cards are verified they look at the numbers, not what was scrawled on some image capture pad.
You could write anything.
X. Mae West. John Wayne.
I might start using Man o' War for my signature.
That was the name of a very famous horse almost 100 years ago.
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