The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Tim Krohn

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December 12, 2009

Thanks to technology, my name is now T. SquigglyLine

By Tim Krohn

My name has changed drastically over the years.

I used to carefully write my full name out when signing checks: Timothy Lee Krohn.

I was careful to do it the same each time. It gave me a sense of security, knowing any crook stealing my checks wouldn’t be able to duplicate my signature.

But it’s a long name, and no one ever stole any of my check blanks, so I went to Tim L. Krohn, then Tim Krohn.

Then, the debit card pretty much did away with my check blanks.

But I miss being able to put things on the memo line of checks. I’d write incongruous words there — WD40/underwear, snow tires/Barbie Doll, Duct tape/incense — to give the tellers at Valley Bank something to think about. Which might explain the odd looks they still give me when I come in.

Signing the electronic pads at checkout counters seems a purposeless endeavor. Ostensibly, you sign them to verify it’s you using the debit or credit card. But the little pads are usually wobbly and the plastic pen cumbersome, and it’s hard to write anything clearly, or similar to the last time you did it.

It soon became apparent that it didn’t matter what I signed on the pad anyway, because the clerks aren’t looking at them. And you can’t blame them. I probably wouldn’t recognize my wife’s signature, so what are the chances the kid behind the counter is going to recognize if the one I put down is real?

The clerks who are ordered to actually ask for your card to check it against the signature you put down, don’t exactly study it like they’re handwriting analysts.

They give it a glance, often looking at the side of the card without the signature, so they can say they did their duty before handing the card back to you.

My signature on the electronic pads has deteriorated to the point it is now a T followed by a squiggly line.

My signature looks like a line chart showing the Gross Domestic Product in the United States during the past year, or a scary EKG reading.

I’ve taken to watching people sign their names on the electronic checkout pads. Apparently, there are a lot of people whose first name is a letter and last name is SquigglyLine.

The prevalence of electronic transactions has made the written signature nearly obsolete.

Even if you still use paper checks, banks don’t send them back to you. Which I miss. I liked getting that thick envelope of canceled checks. It shamed me into questioning my spending habits after thumbing through all those checks for $2.75 for convenience store licorice and $3.95 at the fast food joints.

Looking at the screen full of bank transactions online isn’t the same — it just fuels irresponsible spending.

Which is probably fine with the credit and debit card companies, who want to make it easier to spend our money and harder to trace how we do it.

We’ve come full circle, I guess. During the settling of our country, the shyster traders got the Indians to scrawl an X on the line, a meaningless symbol the traders could manipulate any way they wanted to steal.

Now, the financial industry got us to abandon any notion of a legal signature.

But I’m sure they’ll be responsible and ethical.

If we can’t trust them, who can we trust?



Tim Krohn is a Free Press staff writer. He can be contacted at 344-6383 or by e-mail at tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com.

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Tim Krohn