*If* I got married *and* I changed my surname (and also, should the apocalypse come...all equally likely...) I intend to just cut down to only signing ita. Exactly the same way Rachel designed it.

I don't know, Consuela. Cake is always good for my state of mind.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't changed my last name, but then I think about how confusing it could get for the kids, and honestly I can't be too stressed about it. Anyway, twenty-something years later, it is what it is.

My signature has my whole first name, and then T and complete scribbles.

My mom eventually changed to a print "t" instead of a script "t" because everyone thought her last name was Gaylor. After 20 years, it still looks forced, as does her middle initial, which she added after she had a welfare client of the same name try to take out a mortgage in her identity.

Because it deserves a single post-

Cass- I am so sorry about Kittenish and am sending much ma to you and to your father.

Pete occasionally gets mock-cross about how illegible my signature is. "Venters is a fine name! It should be written clearly!"

Which is to say, you can make out a V, E, and N, and sometimes even a T. Otherwise, it's swoopy lines.

I have also modified my signature so that I can write out my surname without lifting pen from paper--that was an important exercise in high school--full signature, legible, only lifting the pen off the paper twice. I'm not going through that shit again for some new surname. He can have mine.

I've occasionally misspelled my name when I was signing it. Normally I just go for a big A and then a scrawl afterwards. My dad's signature looks like a stylized M. There's no M in his name.

When I was in my late thirties, I closed an account at a credit union that I opened when I was in my early teens, almost 25 years earlier. They pulled a copy of my signature when I opened the account, and my it looked exactly the same as it does now.

See, my maiden name and married name (which I didn't legally change to but use in some social stations) are both S-squiggle-ff. Convenient!

I actually have several possible signatures because I experimented a lot with my handwriting and calligraphy in high school. I try to be consistent on legal documents, which is the mostly squiggle. I do wish I had some kind of occasion to bust out the Cyrrilic signature, though, it looks cool.

Tim, who has a 9-letter German last name, signs his full name as a "T" and one long squiggly dash. I can forge his signature SO EASILY.

Of course, I don't really have any *need* to, but I like knowing that I can.