Yellow Belly Lane

I could never live on Yellow Belly Lane. If it doesn’t matter to you, then perhaps you’ve never thought about it. It’s part of your overall identity. Peter Brown at 123 Yellow Belly Rd. You say your street address probably more than you're even aware. For example the everyday task of ordering take out.

“One medium pizza, hold the anchovies, for delivery.”
“Address”
“…”
“Sir?”
“Tell you what. Do you know where Pine Crest Court is?”
“Yeah…”
”I’ll meet you there.”

Think about it. I don’t suffer from some masculine identity crisis or anything, but really there is something about settling down on Towering Pansy Parkway, that sends shivers down my spine. It’s not like real estate is cheap. I understand California is a lot worse than other places, but anywhere you might spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on your home. To put out all that cash just to be humiliated everyday when you turn onto your street, seems like poor judgment to me.

What happened to all the good names? Are we only allowed a certain amount of normal everyday names? Did the city planners get bored and start collecting name idea from the local kindergarten class? I don’t care how much money Mr. Dolittle gave to the city coffers; I don’t want my magazines labeled with it. It occurs to me that this is why people tear off their name and address when they give their magazines away. They’re not worried about criminals; they don’t want people in the doctors office to know they live at 2525 Sweet Piggy Way.

Some street names are ridiculous, but at least they aren’t humiliating. In my town we have a section where all the streets are named after places and characters from Robin Hood. I suppose I could have my pizza delivered to Little John, Will Scarlet, or even Sherwood Forest as long as the driver wasn’t scared of the evil spirits. Ridiculous names are different from humiliating. The difference is easy enough recognize. With the humiliating names you’ll feel a pit in your stomach that slowly rises up to your throat when your mechanic verifies your name and address in the shop computer system.

“Peter Brown…at…”
“YES! YES! THAT’S ME!!! Please don’t say it out load.”
“Say what? Dirty Bottom Blvd?”
“[sigh]”

I know there are readers out there who don’t understand.

You’ll say, “We accept a lot of your crazy theories and bizarre notions Peter, but give it a rest. Are you saying if your dream house was on Glandular Glen you wouldn’t buy it?”

First off, if it were built on any street that bore even a slight resemblance to an internal body part it wouldn’t be my dream house. Second, yes I would have trouble buying it. I mean you might live there for a long time, and every day you picked up your mail you would get not only correspondence, but also a defining bit of self-awareness.

Here lives Peter Brown of Yellow Belly Lane.