My brother-in-law lives in one of those exclusive grated communities. Every other week huge trucks with tires as tall as a Donald Trump tale unload a small mountain of grated romano or parmesan cheese in the parking lot next to the community pool.

Whenever he wants, he flip-flops over there with his Sponge Bob sand pail and a little red shovel and carves out a bucket-load. By the way, his house sits on a golf course and the sand traps are actually filled with grated cheese.

I don’t live in a grated community, or even one of those new fangled gated communities. I do live in a neighborhood that has a tasteful, discreet sign, unreadable from less than a foot away, posted at the entrance to the development.

It bans all solicitors, door-to-door agitators, Bible thumpers, home invaders, politicians, escaped felons, magazine subscription terrorists, escaped politicians, Bill of Rights thumpers, space invaders, and roofing salesmen who just happen to be in the neighborhood at supper time fixing the roof of some guy four streets over, and they wonder if you’d like a new roof or if you have any leftover tuna casserole.

Has this hard-hitting sign stopped a single agitation? Riiiiiight. Nary a canary, Larry. But I did record this recent conversation with a door-to-doorer on my Smarty Pants fone:

Sign Ignorer: Hello. I’m with the Spanish Inquisition. We’re going door to door, confiscating people’s bangers.
Moi: I don’t have any bangers.

SI: What about the banger in that bun you’re holding?
M: That’s my sausage sandwich. I was eating it when you rang the bell.

SI: And a sausage, as the English would say, is a banger.
M: Those English, they’d say anything. Hey, is Oliver Cromwell still choking on dirt? The correct answer, by the way, is yes.

SI: Sir, I assure you, a banger is a sausage is a banger. I know my sausage.
M: Can a man ever really know his sausage?

SI: I assume you know what goes into a sausage?
M: Let’s see, there’s uh, sauce and, um, that idge stuff.

SI: Lucky guess. Did you know that improperly handled sausage is the leading cause of death in people who improperly handle sausage?
M: Did you know that if you insert a sausage into each nostril you can do a very cool walrus impression? And if you put another sausage in your mouth you can do an impression of a walrus smoking a cigar. See?

SI: You’re not going to eat those sausages now, are you?
M: Mind telling me why the Spanish Inquisition is going door to door threatening a man’s bratwurst? Shouldn’t you be out stretching someone on the rack?

SI: Uh, the rack is in the shop.
M: You’re making this up, aren’t you? You’re not really with the Spanish Inquisition. You’re just…hungry.

SI: Er. Uh. Actually I’m with the…the government. I’m here to confiscate your…buns.
M: I have no buns.

SI: What about the bun that had the banger in it?
M: That was a roll.

SI: A roll is a bun.
M: Says who?

SI: Says Rollo Bundy. He invented the roll and called it a bun.
M: Isn’t that like inventing the puke-wheel and calling it a merry-go-round?

SI: Look I’m a…a federal agent and I demand you turn over your buns.
M: Usually, I love that kind of talk. But, you know, if buns are outlawed, only outlaws can have a beef-on-wick sandwich.

SI: Okay. I really didn’t want to have to say this, but…uh…do you have any leftover tuna casserole?
M: Step this way. Tuna casserole is made to be leftover.

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