I’m learning sign language.

Did you know that you can only get your sign language name from someone who is deaf? It’s true! You can’t just give yourself one. That would be like trying to give yourself a nickname – it doesn’t work. You can’t walk around saying “Call me The Eagle” when everyone clearly sees you’re more of a “Trips Over His Own Feet While Walking on Flat Surfaces.”

So anyway, I’ve been taking classes for three months now. Three months of frantically flapping my hands around like I’m trying to direct traffic during an earthquake. My instructor, Maria, is this incredibly patient deaf woman who probably regrets every life choice that led her to teaching hearing people how to communicate.

The whole name thing came up last week. I asked her – well, signed to her, very badly – about getting a sign name. I was so excited. I was thinking I’d get something cool, like “Swift Hands” or “Word Warrior” or maybe something that captured my rugged masculinity, like “Silent Storm.”

Maria watched me sign this request. And by “sign,” I mean I basically performed an interpretive dance that vaguely resembled someone having a seizure while trying to swat a particularly aggressive bee. She nodded thoughtfully, studied me for a long moment, and then her face lit up with what I thought was inspiration.

Here’s mine: makes a gesture that looks like someone frantically patting their pockets while their face shows pure panic

My sign name translates to “Always Loses Keys.”

ALWAYS. LOSES. KEYS.

Maria explained – and I could swear there was a little smirk when she signed this – that sign names are supposed to capture something essential about your character or appearance. Something that really defines you as a person.

Apparently, what defines me as a person is chronic key misplacement.

And the worst part? She’s not wrong. I have lost my keys seventeen times since starting her class. SEVENTEEN TIMES. I once lost them while they were in my hand. I was holding them, talking to my neighbor, gesticulating wildly because I was practicing my signs, and somehow managed to fling them into Mrs. Henderson’s prize-winning rose bush.

Mrs. Henderson was not amused. Those roses have thorns like tiny medieval weapons, and I had to basically perform emergency surgery on a shrub to get my keys back. By the time I was done, I looked like I’d been in a fight with a very small, very angry dragon.

But Maria saw this. Maria sees everything. I swear she has supernatural powers of observation. Like last Tuesday, I walked into class, and before I even sat down, she signed, “Keys?” I patted my pockets in that universal gesture of the keyless, and sure enough – I’d left them in my car. Which was now locked. With the keys inside.

She just nodded like she was accepting a tribute from a particularly predictable peasant.

The other students in my class have gotten much cooler names. There’s Jessica, whose sign name means “Bright Smile” because she has this amazing, infectious grin. There’s Marcus, who got “Steady Hands” because he picked up fingerspelling faster than anyone Maria had ever taught. There’s even Craig, who got “Quick Wit” because he’s always making jokes in sign language that actually land.

And then there’s me: “Always Loses Keys.”

I tried to negotiate. I suggested alternatives. What about “Eager Learner”? I sign enthusiastically! What about “Tall Guy”? I’m pretty tall! What about literally anything that doesn’t make me sound like a walking advertisement for those little beeping key finders?

Maria just looked at me with this expression that somehow conveyed both deep affection and mild exasperation, and signed very slowly and clearly: “The name fits.”

The name fits.

I couldn’t even argue because at that exact moment, I realized I couldn’t remember where I’d put my keys when I came into the classroom. I started doing the pocket pat dance again, and Maria just pointed to the table next to me where I’d apparently set them down thirty seconds earlier.

She didn’t even say “I told you so.” She didn’t have to. Her face said it all.

But here’s the thing – I’m starting to embrace it. “Always Loses Keys” has a certain charm to it. It’s specific. It’s memorable. It’s devastatingly accurate. And honestly, in a world full of people trying to be mysterious and complex, there’s something refreshing about a name that just cuts straight to the core of who you are.

I am a person who loses keys. I lose them in my car, in my couch cushions, in my refrigerator (don’t ask), and once, memorably, in my coffee cup. I am consistent in my inconsistency. I am reliably unreliable when it comes to key management.

And you know what? Maria could have given me a much worse name. She could have gone with “Fingers Like Drunk Sausages” or “Signs Like He’s Drowning” or “That Guy Who Asked If There Was Sign Language for Snoring.”

Yes, I actually asked that. No, there isn’t. Yes, Maria’s face suggested she was reconsidering her career choices.

So I wear my sign name with pride now. “Always Loses Keys” – it’s not just a name, it’s a brand. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a warning to anyone who might be foolish enough to trust me with their spare set.

And the best part? Every time I introduce myself to a new deaf person and tell them my sign name, they immediately understand everything they need to know about me. It’s like the most efficient character summary ever created.

Though I have to say, the irony is not lost on me that I’m learning a language that requires my hands to be free and expressive, while simultaneously being a person who can’t manage to keep track of the small metal objects that let me into my own home.

But hey, at least I’m memorable. In the deaf community, I am now forever known as that hearing guy who probably shouldn’t be trusted with anything smaller than a breadbox.

And honestly? I’m okay with that.

pats pockets frantically

Oh, come on, not again…