President Obama cracked wise the other day while announcing his nomination of Jack Lew to be the next treasury secretary. The object of the president’s wisecrack was Lew’s signature.

It’s illegible. An NPR reporter referred to it this morning as resembling the “swirly frosting on top of a Hostess Cupcake.” Well, Lew – the White House chief of staff – hadn’t worried about the appearance of his signature until now. You see, the signature is going to appear on paper currency once he takes office, a point that Obama made while announcing the nomination.

The president said when he learned of Lew’s chicken-scratch signature, he considered “rescinding my offer to appoint him” as treasury boss. Then Lew agreed, the president said, to “make one letter legible so as not to debase our currency.”

Everyone laughed. Indeed, the current treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, had to perform a signature makeover of his own when he took office, as it, too, was illegible.

But my wife made an interesting point when we learned of this signature kerfuffle. What about future generations of treasury secretaries – today’s elementary school students – who aren’t taught proper penmanship. The computer age has all but made handwriting a lost art.

In fact, we have young members of our family actually admit to being unable to sign their name in cursive handwriting.

How many millions of young American school children are going to come of age in the next generation or two who fall into the category of not knowing how to sign their name? And what will happen when one of them gets a call from, say, the 50th president of the United States asking them to lead the Treasury Department? Will they have to construct a signature that until that moment did not exist?

We’re laughing now at Jack Lew’s illegible signature. He can repair it quickly, given that he likely had to learn the proper way to write his name.

It might not be such an easy task down the road when handwriting becomes extinct.