Sign here please

One of the hardest things about learning to speak Spanish well, for me at least, is the sheer drama of the language. Spanish is big. Bold. Spanish draws attention to the speaker, as he rrrrrolllls elegant r's and hisses guttural j's ..jjjjamón....

I struggled a long time with j's and r's and the ever nethethary lithp..Spain's lispy soft c.

You just can't speak Spanish and not take risks. This is not a conservative language. Nothing about Spanish is understated.

English, on the other hand, is appropriately reserved. English holds back. Stays professional. English keeps a stiff upper lip, literally and figuratively. English expresses in 8 short words what might take a literary Spaniard 4 paragraphs.

So now that I've finally conquered my stage fright, now that I rrrrooolllllllll my r's and hhhhhhhhhhhhhack the jjjjjjjjjjjjjj in jjjjjjjjjjamón, the Spanish are after my signature.

Seems it's understated. Reserved. Foreign.

The bank teller pushed the check I was cashing back at me today, straight across the tabletop, without a pause. He was pointing at my appropriately conservative signature on the back, impatiently tap-tap-tapping my sweet little 4 centimeter signature.

-Is this a signature? Incredulous.

-Well, yes.

He laughed. At my signature! (Firma, in Spanish.) Laughed!

I agreed it wasn't a Spanish signature, the way I usually add "Well it's not a Spanish name" as I watch the panic grow on the face of any Spaniard who's just been asked to write my name.

And we laughed some more. At least I make friends.

Last month his colleague passed my check back to me and told me I'd forgotten to sign it --- except I hadn't forgotten.

When I got back to the office yesterday I collected autographs. Large, flowery firmas from the ladies, bold, brazen scribbles from the men, every one of them finished with a well-practiced freehand flourish under the name --- sharp lines or intersecting curves emphatically underlining each firma's crystal clear message:

THIS IS MY SIGNATURE. And I've taken the time to develop it into a work of art. And I'll take up of as much of the page as humanly possible.

Size matters, it would seem, in Spanish signatures.

If my signature drifts into your text, all the better.

I'VE SIGNED.

Just to amuse my teller, I may work something up for my next check. Of course it won't match the signature on anything else I've ever signed, including the residency card I use to identify myself when cashing the monthly pay-the-landlady-in-sweet-untraceable-cash check that causes all this trouble.

But somehow I think he'll be happier. Integration and all that. Watching me learn to live in Spain.