I dropped a friend off at the suburban train station in the intense nor-easter that dumped 10 inches of rain on us recently. My friend has taken to wearing a very handsome bowler hat, of which I am slightly jealous. The wind plucked his hat off and sent it rolling around the parking lot in fast large circles. We laughed at our mutual delight in getting to experience, in real life, a classic cartoon troupe.

I have since been reminded of another cartoon troupe.  When I was young, to illustrate what a rube some character was, he would sign a contract by making an X on the dotted line. And so I was pleased to observe a gentleman signing his credit card purchase by swiping the pen on the terminal screen from left to right making only a horizontal line. As I like to see if I can get a reaction out of the retail clerk I’ve taken to drawing a little smillie face when I sign on those terminals.

Signatures have legal standing, and some years ago the Feds authorized industry to go forth and invent some standards for electronic signatures. We now have a multitude of such systems. I was greatly amused by this one:

In that example the user signs by typing into the top box. In the lower box there then appears a faux signature. It’s a cartoon signature! Giving the impression that somebody actually signed this using a pen.