Yesterday my brother Sam, who you may remember from such episodes as 'I fell down the stairs but it is not my fault' became the topic of discussion amongst the family. Among THREE generations of family to be precise, kids, parents and grandparents.

It seems that Sam has been forging driving hours in his logbook... (and unfortunately telling some people) and not just a few here and there. We went through and totalled his hours, and of the 40 or 50 hours he claims to have, the vast majority are forged. Forged quite impressively one might add, in fact, very very impressively (hint sam... you may have found a calling!) but forged non the less. In fact, at one point, there are almost 3 pages straight of forged signatures, hours and destinations.

I added the real ones up, and he has only really completed 14 hrs 50 mins of driving. Not really up around the 40-50 hr mark is it? No. Didn't think so. Dad contemplated ripping the forged pages out, or losing the book... Dad won't put his signature to something he knows is faked. Or at least that is what he says now... but being that my Dad has the memory of a goldfish sometimes, I'm sure that by 2008 Sam should have the book signed and ready for his test.

And then the real bombshell hit. Apparently it runs in the family. I made the comment that he had gone to all the trouble of forging my Dad and Sisters signatures, when in fact Mum's signature happens to be the 'most easily copied' signature in the family. My sister agreed. Most of the family agreed.

But we never realised the extent of family fraud going on. You see, my little 6 year old sister Gabby, currently in Kinder, has a 'reading log' that has to be completed. Each time she reads a book to mum, one of three colums gets signed or initialed. She has to read each book all the way through three times. But apparently, in her resourcefulness she has discovered a short cut.

We noticed that Mum's last entry on Gabby's 'take home reading' list looked a little... well... badly written for a 40 something year old mother. Look at the second pic. Can you read 'Sally's friends'? Yes... doesn't really look like Mums handwriting does it. No... not really. See the three sets of initials there? MO MO MO? MO doesn't stand for 'Mother Of'. It is *meant* to read 'ND', but Gabby got the letters mixed up. A little bit of a give away unfortunately. And the comments colum? Where it says 'fuh'? Thats most likely meant to read 'FUN'. Either Mum has caught bird flu from her chickens in the backyard, or I smell another family forgery.

I'm not sure what was more fun. Laughing at the extent of Sam's forging, laughing at Gabby forging, or Gabby forging and getting out of reading a stupid book about some kid called 'Sally'.

You know what else is funny? Every kid in the family over the age of 8 knows that Mum's signature is the one to forge when you *were sick* from school...

Ahh... some things run in the family.

EDIT!!

Although I'm surprised that Dad could even tell the difference between signatures, being half blind and all...