Part II

On the topic of credit card signatures, ZUG reader Fronzel Neekburm recently shared this anecdote :

I don't sign my credit cards. Once I went to check into a hotel and the girl checked the back of the card and said it wasn't signed. I signed it there in front of her, and she checked it with the register receipt I also signed in front of her. THANK GOD THEY MATCHED!

I spent several weeks seeing how wacky I could make my signature before someone would pay attention. Again, my regular signature, which looks like that of a homeless clown:

First, I decided to get a little artistic.

Then I decided to get wicked artistic.

You have no idea how strange it is to have the teenage counter clerk at Bertucci's watching you scribble fiercely on a piece of paper, as if you wished to purge the evil that is your signature. Then I smiled and handed him back his pen.

Next time I bought something that required a signature, I considered just creating a rectangle of solid black. Then I thought a grid might be weirder:

Only the most Matrix -obsessed fanboy would actually use a grid for his signature, but the chick at the Cheesecake Factory didn't look twice. I mean, I didn't even have on a trenchcoat .

What if I went the other way? How minimal would my signature have to be before someone would notice?