Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Chad has been trying for awhile now, via mail, to complete all the necessary paperwork to be able to transfer money between our US bank account and the one we have here.  It hasn't been easy because they keep sending it back with a note that the says the "signature doesn't match".  When you sign an important document here they will scrutinize your signature and make sure it matches all your other signatures.  If you're like Chad, and myself, it doesn't always look exactly the same every time you sign something.  Plus sometimes I use my initials, sometimes I include my middle initial, and don't even get me started on that dang apostrophe.

Anyway, we went to Citibank on Saturday to try to take care of it in person.  While there, they showed Chad the signature they were trying to match to (his alien registration card, I think?) and had him try no less than three times before they got one they would accept.  They were hung up on how the "M" that is his middle initial looked.  Geez.

He offered to use his hanko [hane-ko] to do it but they wanted to keep going with the signature.  A hanko is a stamp that Japanese people can use in place of their signature.  I suppose they do it to get around the trouble we went through.  Chad got one when we first got here---he had to go have it registered (at city hall, I think) and he has to carry the registration papers with it.

the hanko (it just says "D'ESPOSITO")