What's up with Whatsit

Adventures in check forgery

Last week my mother had her girls over - that means her Bunko club. They don't even play Bunko anymore, they just get together to eat and run their mouths. The member who is giving the party that month feels like she has to outdo the previous party-giver on the meal she serves. So I was helping Mama get her house fixed - Martha Stewart couldn't have found a way to improve my mother's house, but she was dissatisfied with it - and help with the grocery shopping.

She sent me to Walmart with a signed blank check. It had nothing on it but her signature. I was a little worried about this, because I kept thinking that when they found out I wasn't her, it would be a problem. But I went around and picked everything up she needed, and approached the checkout area with trepidation. The cashier checked and bagged everything and announced the amount. A thought popped into my mind at that instant: I remembered that you could hand the cashier the check and they would print it out. That way, at least they wouldn't see that my handwriting was different from the signature.

I handed the cashier the check. Everything was going fine until she asked me to do signature verification. You know the little machine that they have on your side of the counter to run your credit or debit card through then punch in your ID number? A screen popped up on this machine for me to sign my name so they could verify that my signature was the same as on the check. I guess they do this when the cashier doesn't actually see the person signing the check - I had pulled Mama's check out of my purse already signed.

My handwriting is totally different from my mother's. Hers is slanted and I write straight up and down, plus I write a lot bigger than she does. I had already decided that if the check thing didn't work, I'd just pay cash and she could pay me back, but what if they tried to say I had stolen the check? Would I be indicted for forgery? All of this ran through my mind in an instant. I'm not normally a worrier, but this is what my mind decided to pull on me that day. Then I had to wonder if I should just be honest and sign my name, or take the road of least resistance and sign Mama's name.

I signed my mother's name. In my handwriting - I didn't even attempt to imitate her handwriting.

And guess what? It was accepted. It was all I could do not to jump for joy right there in the Walmart, But guess what else? My thought at the time was that Walmart wasted their money on that signature verification program if it accepted my signature for my mother's - no two handwritings could be any more different.