Friday Frivolity: The Case of the Cat Head Signature

OCU 1L Marcia Clemmons (right) shared with me this story combining two things that I love: contracts and cats.  

A Reddit user known as Bradimal posted the following to start a thread:

In 2015 I had to renew my license and thought it would be funny to do cat heads as my signature, so I did. For the past 3 years I just forgot about it unless I had to show my ID and they pointed it out.  . . .  This hasn't been a problem until today when I had to sign my mortgage papers. The signing agent looked at my ID and shook his head, he was not amused. . . . I had to sign 3 cat heads over 30 times today. 

He links to images of driver's license, along with mortgage papers. both featuring his cat signature. 

These are the driver's license cats

And these are the mortgage paper cats:

Unfortunately, the Internet is to be used with caution.  The story may not be true.  Frankly, I'm comparing the images, and I'm not convinced those are the same cats.  In fact, on the mortgage papers, with respect to the cat on the left, I'm seeing more butt cleavage than feline.

As Kim LaCapria reports on the website Truth or Fiction, there had been no independent verification of the Reddit thread.   The story went viral in 2019, but everybody just repeated the story as told.  On the original Reddit thread, Bradimal allegedly first posted an image of his driver's license, including all of his personal information.  A moderator advised him to edit the post, and he did so.  The original post cannot be retrieved, so it is impossible to know whether Bradimal really exists.  

Or is it?  According to Jonas Grinevičius and anonymous, reporting on Bored Panda, Bradimal seems to be a real person named Brad Johnsen.  Their evidence of Bradimal's existence?  They interviewed him, and he was able to identify the cats in question as Pepè De La Hoya, Sanchez Fluffington, and Eric.

That checks out.

Despite his unpleasant time with the mortgage papers, Bradimal seems to have no regrets.  He advises people to have fun with their signatures.  "It’s yours and it can be anything you want.”