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Headline Hell

When you pay $6 for soap, you want it to have both a high and a low note.

And is there any good way to describe a house fire in Hell other than the phrase that the News headline writer resorted to?

7 Responses to “Headline Hell”


  1. That was surely deliberate. If it weren’t for the fun of putting “Hell” in the headline, the house would have been described simply as being in Putnam Township. Hell is barely even a hamlet, not even a postoffice address.

    posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 4th, 2004 at 1:40 pm

  2. Yeah, they probably wouldn’t have done it if someone had died in that fire.

    I still think it’s weird to pick up a phone book and see “Hell” on the list of communities served.

    posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 4th, 2004 at 1:59 pm

  3. (Hell means “light” in German.)
    js

    posted by js on January 4th, 2004 at 5:34 pm

  4. Wow, between that and “gift” meaning “poison”, you could have one really awful detective story twist (I remember this Isaac Asimov story where the whole thing hinged on the “gift” double meaning, and you were supposed to guess that the note left by the murder victim was meant to indicate a man named “Sy N. Hyde”. Well, when you’re as prolific as Asimov…)

    posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 4th, 2004 at 6:08 pm

  5. Hey Larry, I saw a spot on TV this year about people taking their tax returns to Hell for the postmark.

    On July 15th, 1961 a Postal substation was established at Hell.

    Send a light-hearted message to Washington (and to Lansing) with a ‘Taxes from Hell’ stamp and the official Hell,Michigan cancellation on your returns. We’re pretty sure such a return has no more likelihood to be thrown in the ‘To Be Audited’ pile. Enjoy some nice refreshments while you’re here, and the lights’ll be on til midnight. Join the fun at the Hell, Michigan Post Office, in Hell Country Store and Spirits, 4025 Patterson Lake Road. (Just look for the mob of disgruntled-but-well-behaved taxpayers).

    Tax Day in Hell

    posted by Steven B. Cherry on January 4th, 2004 at 9:15 pm

  6. Okay, they have a cute little post office in the store, but no local delivery area. I meant that there aren’t any houses with a default mailing address is Hell, MI. They’re Pinckney or Hamburg or something.

    posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 5th, 2004 at 1:40 am

  7. As to cross-language puns, there is a suburb south of Lansing known as “Holt”. (Unlike Hell, Holt has thousands of residents, a post office, a school district, and is even recognized by the Census Bureau.) Supposedly Holt means “dead” in Hungarian.

    posted by Larry Kestenbaum on January 5th, 2004 at 1:42 am