As a worker in the food product delivery industry, my success depends heavily on being able to find the right street and the right house.

Streets are easy - I just look at a map and read the street sign.

The right house... that can get a little tricky. Sometimes I have to pass a house a couple times or even just *guess* if I can't see the house number.

Now, it's not a big deal if your pizza's two minutes later than it could've been.

But what if it's a cop or an ambulance that's trying to spot your domicile? Those two minutes might be a VERY big deal.

Do me a favor. Next time you come home at night, see if you can spot your house number, in the dark, while doing the speed limit on your road.

"But," you say, "that's not fair! If my house light were on, I'd be able to see my house number".

I giggle at that, because half the time, turning the porch light on actually makes it WORSE.

See, with most outside lights, when you turn them on, they'll cast cones of light to the sides, and cones of darkness to the top & bottom. And most outside lights are installed DIRECTLY ABOVE the house number, thus shrouding those numbers in shadow. Even worse, I can't see it even if I shine a flashlight on it, because my flashlight can't compete with the outside light.

Ok, so your house number's invisible. What should you do?

My suggestions, in order of preference:

1) If you have a mailbox by the side of the road, put large, reflective, stick-on numbers on BOTH sides of the box, so that they can easliy be seen by a car coming from EITHER direction.

If you have a flag on the side of your box, make sure it doesn't cover the numbers in either the up or down position.

DON'T put the numbers on the front of the box - by the time a driver sees it, he's already blown by your house & will have to turn around.

2) Put the numbers either just to the left, or just to the right of the door frame. This is the "standard" location for a house number.

3) Put the numbers IN the cone of light your porch light gives off. Be careful here, because if you use raised numbers, they can cast shadows that make them difficult to read.

So maybe now you're sitting there all smug because you have a house number next to your door frame.

Well, kudos to you, but during this happy, festive time of year, PLEASE make sure you don't accidentally cover it up with a wreath, or a raindeer, or a 6-foot inflatable snow globe. I see this (or DON'T see this, as the case may be) all too often. In fact, an errant wreath is what prompted this post.

In short, make sure that your house number is easy to spot under the worst of circumstances, because it may be under the worst of circumstances that you most need your house number to be spotted.

And your pizzas will get there hotter, too.

Posted by: Harvey at 11:20 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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