So here's a funny story. I think.

[fflo]

The other day I put an old stylized panther sculpture thingie from the 50s probably on craigslist, and I had one nibble, from a guy who wrote "would like to get this whats a good time and day".  I asked whether he was available that afternoon at 4 or 5, and he wrote back "What's the address?"  That wasn't a thoroughly responsive answer, but w/e, I told him the address and asked what time he'd be able to make it--- 4? 4:30? 5?  He wrote back "I'm in coldwater it take a little while".  Great, geez, okay, I looked it up and Coldwater's about an hour an a half away, so I wrote again to say it looked like he was about an hour and a half away, and asked him please for an estimate so I'd know not to be down the street with the dog, but I didn't hear anything back after that.  I was gonna be home anyway, so I just went on with the day, wondering whether I'd see him, and now & then texting back a local bud to confirm that I was still alive---more than one friend that day had been joking with me about his possibly being a craigslist killer.  I did think maybe it was good I mentioned my dog, who could be a giant ferocious dog, though she's actually just medium-sized and hairy.  When the guy didn't show by 5:45 I wrote again, noting that he hadn't shown up or said when "we" could expect him, and said let's consider the sale cancelled.

So here's the funny part: it was only after that that I thought to Google him, and what I found out is that he used to be a cop in Dearborn but was fired, and later sued to claim his free speech had been violated, because the official reason for his firing was that he insisted on writing his 7s in the "European" style, with the little crossbar, after having been ordered to knock it off.  Ha!  Isn't that a hoot?  I mean, that's not even really why they wanted to fire him, but just the direct order he disobeyed that they could cite that got the ball rolling.  But still.  Read all about it here, in legal detail.

He may have wasted my time, and his particular historical kookiness is maybe a sign he's trouble in general, but part of me is sympathetic that he wanted to make his 7s the way he wanted to make his 7s, and sorta tried to assert some fundamental right that way (while there was also more to it, yeah, but that part's not as funny).  I don't just say that cuz I like to cross my 7s.  Tho I do.

Comments

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

I cross mine, too, but it's from my days in computer science. I can't believe they'd fired him for that. It seems a little extreme.

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

I can't believe they'd fired him for that. It seems a little extreme.
I feel the same way

[paperkingdoms]

This mathematician also crosses her 7's. (One of my favorite haphazard classroom sidebar conversations is about the oddities of handwriting mathematics, and the things you need to sort for yourself at some point -- so that your 1's, l's (lower case L's), I's (upper case i's), 7s, absolute value and norm signs are all distinguishable from each other. So that your m's and n's are never confused (I now print more universally than I used to, but there was a point when my n's had one hump and my m's had three, because when you're dropping in and out of cursive, what's that thing with two humps?), so that your u's and v's and mu's and nu's are all identifiable as different letters. Because context? Sometimes difficult to come by in mathematical expressions.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Too bad the expression isn't "mind your v's and nu's"!

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I don't normally cross my 7s, but I think of crossing them as a thing worth doing occasionally when necessary to more clearly distinguish them from 1s and some letters. The idea that crossing them could be perceived as actually making them more easily confused with other characters somewhat boggles my mind.

I also vary between writing my 1s as a simple upright line or adding serifs on bottom and top, based on whether the serifs seem necessary in a given context to more clearly distinguish the 1s from uppercase letter Is and lowercase letter ls.