How does it feel to be reading the blog of a presumed criminal? You are, you know, it says so here in this letter I’m holding, which I received from “The Enforcement Division”fahrenheit.jpg of a mysterious body called “TV Licensing.” A British government body? A private company? I don’t know, the letter doesn’t tell me that. It just tells me that the “TV Licensing Enforcement Division is proceeding with a full investigation” of my home. Why? “Because there is no record of a TV license at this property.” Gasp! No TV license for the Halverson house? The horror!!!!

We don’t own a TV.

The TV Licensing Enforcement Division. It sounds like something out of Fahrenheit 451, which I started reading last week. In that classic book, ‘firemen’ are dedicated professionals who scramble out of bed and slide down poles toward revving fire trucks as ear-piercing alarms send them to the homes of people caught with books. There, the firemen use flamethrowers to incinerate the books . . . and of course the homes along with them. The zealous book burners have no remorse, of course, for the criminals crying behind them knew darn well they should’ve been watching their TV walls instead of . . . *gulp* . . . instead of reading. As I sit here now, the “OFFICIAL WARNING” letter now resting on my tabletop in front of me, I’m feeling a strong urge to rush to my front door and peer out the mail slot, for surely a frantic group of helmeted men in black fire-retardant clothing is racing up my walk this very moment with flamethrowers at the ready. Ack, do you see what reading does to you? No wonder they created a TV Licensing Enforcement Division—we can’t have people’s imagination running away from them like this.

The fact is, with the exception of the sporadic episode of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ on the Internet every few months, I haven’t watched TV since the night before my triplets were born four and a half years ago. Who has the time to follow The Hills or scream at Jeopardy contestants when you’re caring for three newborns on just two hours of sleep a day? So we canceled our cable when the boys were six months old and started channeling that $278-per-year cable fee into our diaper budget. We never turned the cable back on, as it never occurred to us to want to watch TV. Out of sight, out of mind. There’s plenty of other stuff to do, once you ditch the tube. Then we moved here to Lowestoft, England, last August, and found that our landlord had kindly left us a TV. At first we pushed it into a corner and covered it with a blanket, thinking it might make a useful end table, but then I called our landlord several weeks later and had him cart the thing away, as we needed that two-by-two-foot space for the boys’ buckets of cars. Thus, our house has no ‘record of a TV license.’ Apparently, the fact that we have no license makes the TV Licensing Division presume we are committing a “criminal offense” because surely we are watching TV without paying for it. Funny how they presume we’re stealing and not that we are not watching TV at all. Gosh, I never guessed that reading Charlotte’s Web to my sons in the evening and having Wednesday Game Nights would get me thrown in the clinker. Silly—and criminal—me.

The OFFICIAL WARNING letter goes on to inform me, in a very dire tone, that should the outcome of this ‘full investigation’ be that I am found guilty of ‘acting in contravention of the Communications Act 2003,’ I’m really gonna get it. Specifically, I’ll be fined a thousand pounds and forced to pay legal costs. And probably whipped with a wet noodle while they’re at it.

As you can imagine, I made myself a little call this morning.

“TV Licensing,” the man who answered the phone said. Or at least I think that’s what he said, as he muttered it in a low but quick monotone rendered completely incomprehensible by his thick British accent. Sheesh, almost a year in England and I still get lost in the accent. Maybe I should have been watching TV; people say that’s a great way to learn the language in a foreign country.

My call started off well.

“How can I help?” he said.

“I got a mail in the letter,” I replied. Yeah, that’s the way to get someone to take you seriously, lady. Throws me back to that time in high school when I called a boy and said, “Hi, Debbie, it’s Lewis.” Clearly, my reading habit has not had the desired effect on my oral communication skills. Flustered by my stunning inarticulateness, I fell back on the old standby—that is, I went off on the guy. This letter is offensive, I told him. How dare you presume me a criminal?, I demanded. I don’t even OWN a TV, I declared.

“Right, then, you’ll be wanting a manager.” Click, crackle, Muzak.

Realizing the error of my ways, I tried a different tack when Amanda, the manager, came on the line. Or rather, Amanda the Regional Enforcement Manager, as I like to think her title. That’s the title of the guy who signed my OFFICIAL WARNING letter, anyway, and it’s just too juicy to let go of.

“Amanda,” I began, this time pleased with my word choice and my tone. I mean, it’s hard to say the name Amanda in any way but nicely, so it was a safe opening. “I want to ask your division to review the tone of your letters.” I then explained the letter I received, pointed out that I don’t even own a television, and explained that being presumed a criminal and threatened with a substantial fine and legal costs is, oh, stunningly offensive. “Not good customer service,” I finished.

Showing that perhaps the TV Licensing Enforcement Division isn’t completely lacking in their customer services skills, Amanda kindly (and slowly, at my pathetic Yankee request) explained that they would review the form letter in question with my concerns about tone in mind, that it’s a very important issue to her, and thank you very much for your call, Mrs. Halverson.

Okay. Well. You can only be an indignant, self-righteous, vocal non-customer in the face of such politeness for so long, so I guess I had to be done with my complaint now. “Um, okay.” There, it’s always nice to get in the last word. I thanked Amanda the Regional Enforcement Manner and hung up. I’d made my point. I may have books instead of a TV, but that doesn’t make me a crook.

*In case you, like I, didn’t know the significance of the title ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ that’s the temperature at which book paper burns.

photo credit: a screenshot from the 1996 film “Fahrenheit 451” directed by François Truffaut