He was training some punk at work. BellyRub wrote down something and the guy said, “Hm, that’s interesting. You know, your handwriting says a lot about your personality.”
BellyRub was offended. His handwriting is not beautiful. He never bothers to write a heart over his lowercase i. His exclamation point doesn’t have two eyes and a grin at the bottom. He never learned to make an uppercase Q that was recognizable as an uppercase Q? Well, actually, no one knows how to do that and make it look like a Q? (If you know how to make a cursive uppercase Q that looks like a Q, please send it to every grammar school textbook publisher in the world and to my fourth grade teacher who said my handwriting needed improvement. And gave my best friend good grades!)
The offended BellyRub explained that the link between handwriting and personality had been disproved many times. I think the trainee could use some more training on how to be polite. I’m ready to volunteer, too. (They’d never hire me for pay. You should see my handwriting!)
I imagine myself in BellyRub’s position. I’m trying to teach this goofball trainee and when I write down some notes for him to learn he says, “Hm, that’s interesting. You know, that says a lot about your personality.”
I’d look carefully at the paper and then look at him with a somewhat glazed and googly look and say, “Yeah, it’s kind of scattered and pointy, isn’t it?” I’d make some kind of creepy, jerky motion, and smile. I’d say, “It’s weird how people pick up on those personality quirks, isn’t it? You’re pretty perceptive.” Then I’d start looking around frantically for a pencil and stick it behind my ear. I’d say, “Oh, that’s better. Always be prepared. Thought I’d lost my stick.” Cuckoo grin.
When I was talking to BellyRub I let my mind wander in a different direction. I’d still say, “Yeah, it’s kind of scattered and pointy, isn’t it?” Then I’d say, “It warns people that I have knives in my pants.”
At that point BellyRub laughed and said, “Whaaat?” And I laughed because I realized that my sentence sounded like a foreign language translation of what I meant.
He said, in a scattered, pointy voice, “Oh! Pockets! Knives in your pockets!” So I started laughing thinking about the poor French boys and girls learning my twisted version of English and thinking that I’m talking about pants made out of knife fabric. “Oh! Pierre! Do you like my cargo-pants? They are made from real cargoes! From Brazil!”
And, of course, I must laugh at myself for writing pants. Here is the good ol’ US of A, where many misunderstandings are born and bred, we’ve got a dire pants situation. The US version of pants is trousers. Or jeans, I imagine. I’m making that up, taking liberties, yassir. But in jolly old England (not good ol’), pants are underpants. You know, underwear, skivvies, bloomers, shorts, panties, tightie whities, boxers, loincloths, codpieces, drawers, thongs, snowsuits, those kinds of things.
So having knives in one’s undies, well, that might make you have scattered, pointy handwriting if you didn’t in the beginning, mightn’t it?