In the end, it came down to the ambulance. I finally changed the number on Cobb Manor.

When I moved into Cobb Manor 23 years ago, there were no house numbers. The occasional visitor wandered up and down the road, looking for the party. The newspaper delivery person, the phone company, the collection agencies all had trouble finding the house.

So I decided to give it a number.

Number 1 would have been egotistical, although I kind of liked the ring to it. Being a self-effacing sort, I chose the humble 3. And there it stayed for 23 years.

What I liked is that the guy next door eventually put up a number 5 and the house next to him put up a 7 and we were off to the races.

Then the town had to go and establish that damn enhanced 911 system, where every house has a ‘real” number and the police and ambulance crews know where to find a resident in trouble. They decided, arbitrarily, with no input from me (probably in executive session) that I was now living at number 15.

Killjoys.

First, town hall gave me grief about the number on my registration. I changed it. Then the number on my registration was different from my driver’s license. A polite police officer pointed that discrepancy out during the annual speeding ticket exercise. I changed the number on my license.

But I kept the big, gold, number 3 on Cobb Manor because I liked it.

After all, I have a steady stream of trucks arriving from Fed Ex and UPS with my constant purchases of books, knives, flashlights and L.L. Bean outerwear.

When in doubt, I purchase.

When my beloved daughter, Bridget, wandered through Bean’s on a Christmas stocking-buying spree, the polite clerk inquired if a Mag-Lite was a good idea. “He has more of those than you do,” she said, not quite accurately. They have warehouses, after all.

If I changed the number, those trucks would be wandering up and down Cobb Road, looking for the nonexistent number 15.

What was more important, the ambulance, fire and police vehicles, or the shiny delivery trucks?

That was a tough one.

In a rare moment of clarity, I wandered the strange aisles of the hardware store and discovered the house number section. Sadly, I bought the 1, then the 5.

In Cobb Manor tradition, the numbers sat by the front door for months.

Finally David Grima came by for a free breakfast. Apparently his employer, the Camden Herald, pays him so little that he wanders the parish, seeking food handouts.

Grima likes to decorate his own life by setting fire to mine. He pointed out, as he does daily, that I am old and fat and headed for the last roundup. He claimed that the town put up a nursing home on one side of me and the ambulance station on the other to deal with my approaching demise.

The number must be changed to guide my eventual rescuers to Cobb Manor, he argued.

Grima, a Great Britain reject, keeps himself armed with a Leatherman at all times although he is the least active human being in Maine. He claims to keep it to ward off charging rhinos.

When I pointed out that there are no rhinos in Maine, he always answers “See! It’s working.”

He argued, reading the obituaries of those under my age, that the time had come for safety. He took that Leatherman in hand and removed the ancient, beloved and golden number 3 from the door.

In a rare flurry of activity, he affixed the 15 to both sides of the newspaper box. It was done.

Killjoy.

All right, I am safe. But I am not happy.