Contest Report: What is Your Address?

I once sent my sister Sharon, a copy of a letter I sent to a national organization with whom I had a serious beef, to ask for her advice about how I had expressed myself. In the letter, I had made multiple valid points but for added emphasis and to add somewhat of a dagger into the heart of whoever might be paid to read incoming correspondence, I used some form or another of the "F" word.

My sister, who has great experience as a professional writer, advised me that I may have actually lessoned the credibility of the clearly valid content of my letter by stooping to such a level, and quite frankly, in retrospect, I agreed with her assessment. I would use that advice for years to come in my correspondence with others.

A friend of mine cusses as much as I do. But he does not cuss in front of his kids. He is a Green Bay Packers fan, so this year, he is okay. But in years past, while sitting in his living room watching my Tampa Bay Bucs pummel his Green Bay Packers, I witnessed him give the following directive to his youngsters:

As Brett Favre threw an interception, he said, "You kids go upstairs, Daddy is about to cuss."

So, I mention all of this so I can tell you that I am about to say "Fuck".

This evening, my wife and I went out on sort of a volunteer mission to take pictures of houses within several of the sub-divisions that make up our Neighborhood Association. The idea is, people decorate their homes with lights, we take pictures of the lighted homes and then later, some committee will look at all the pictures and choose winning homes for each sub-division.

I printed off a list of addresses that had already been pre-selected for viewing with the instructions that any other homes that looked really good could be added. Fair enough. But you can only really look at the lights when it is dark.

When my wife tried to burn my house down... Okay, let me rephrase that.

When we had an accidental kitchen burning at our home, the fire department made it to our house in minutes. Thankfully, all we got out of the ordeal was a new kitchen and dining room. I'd hate for any of you to have to suffer such a fate, but the fact is, our damage was limited because they got here so quickly.

Heaven forbid the fire department had to track down half the houses on my list tonight because homeowners are too lazy or too cheap to pay the $20.00 it costs to have reflective numbers painted on the curb or heaven forbid, they might change the light bulb that shows the 35 cent numbers mounted on the front of your house. What the Fuck? Are you people nuts?

I wish no pain upon anyone. What happens if your kid chokes on a chicken bone and you dial 9-11 and the EMT's can't pick out your house from the other ones on the street without numbers? What happens if your neighbor is the guy the SWAT team is looking for but they get confused because neither of you thought it was a good idea to post the address to your house on the curb or the freakin' house?
Then what?

For God's sakes, it's just a stupid Christmas Lighting contest but now is the time to figure out whether or not you need to fix your address marker. Walk out front at night and ask yourself if a paramedic or a firefighter is going to come right in and help you, or drive up and down the street looking for your house.

I'm not sure how valid my use of the F-word was in describing this situation, but it sure made me feel better.