What's Wrong With This Picture?

There are a few surefire ways for a newspaper to guarantee outraged letters from readers. My favorites involve printing photographs that you might think would be innocuous but in fact are ticking time bombs.

Publish a photo of a person riding a bicycle without a helmet or walking on a railroad track (with or without a helmet) and you can be sure to receive splenetic missives sort of like this:

"How dare you!?!? Have you no decency!?!? By your reckless and insensitive actions, you are clearly sending the message that you condone riding bicycles without helmets and/or the squashing of innocent people by heavy locomotives.

"I hope you're happy that the blood of countless poor victims will stain your hands. I have taken out a subscription to your pathetic newspaper in order that I may cancel it. Yours, etc."

As I understand it, the point these people are making is that printing photos of people engaged in unhealthy activities may encourage just such activities, either explicitly ("Hey, Ma, that kid in The Post photo ain't wearing a stinking helmet, and neither am I!") or subliminally (see enough photos of people walking on railroad tracks and you may feel an unexplainable urge to do it too).

I suppose they have a point. All things being equal, it is probably better not to print photos of people without helmets riding bicycles, or people walking on railroad tracks, smoking cigarettes, eating Quarter Pounders with Cheese, pouring water on electrical fires, running with scissors, juggling grenades, teasing Gila monsters, etc.

Which brings us to Lynne Schubert of Silver Spring. Lynne was watching TV the other night when she saw a commercial for insurance company Geico. The ad featured the Geico Gecko, that animated anthropomorphic lizard, driving a red sports car. He zipped about in the car and then pulled into a parking space marked "Employee of the Month."

He was not wearing a seat belt.

"Shame on Geico," Lynne said. "Where are the ad police when you need them? Raise that gecko's car insurance rates, write him a ticket and, for heaven's sakes, take his parking space away!"

There is some irony in a commercial for an insurance company -- which presumably encourages seat belt use -- making such a mistake.

Or did it make a mistake?

Of course not, said Chris Tasher, Geico's public relations director. When I asked why the Geico Gecko was not wearing a seat belt, she said that Gecko drives an older-model convertible. It has no shoulder belt, but it does have a lap belt and it is buckled.

"You can't see it," Chris said. "Gecko is very aware of safety measures. He would never drive without a seat belt."

Chris was so ready with her answer that I sensed this was a question Geico has been asked before.

"We have, as soon as people spotted that commercial," she said. "We're glad they're paying attention. But, for sure, Gecko's definitely wearing a lap belt."

She pointed out that Gecko is the sponsor of the company's safety belt poster contest. ("He is the first one to promote safety belt safety," she said.) For him to drive without a seat belt would be quite the scandal, like discovering that a right-wing politician kept a secret love nest stocked with Hooters girls and 50-gallon barrels of massage oil.

An Alarming Development

The Kelly family moved not too long ago. Since we're in a new house -- well, new to us -- we've been getting lots of mail from people who want to clean our gutters or sell us replacement windows. Some of the mail is from banks that want us to refinance our mortgage.

Some is from real estate agents who want us to sell our house -- the house we just moved into -- to one of their clients. (I always detect an undertone of hostility in these sorts of letters. It's as if we're undeserving squatters, occupying a house that, in a fairer world, would go to someone else, someone more worthy.)

I also received a phone call that must have come because my name was on a people-who-recently-moved list. It was from an alarm company, the guys who install and monitor home security systems.

After introducing himself, the telemarketer asked: "Do you presently have a home security system?"

Now, I didn't know if this really was a home security company or if it was a criminal mastermind posing as a home security company hoping to get some useful information. In either case, it's not the sort of question a stranger should ask you over the phone.

(And of course I have a home security system, equipped with land mines, laser beams and highly trained Gila monsters.)

It turned out that it was a real security company. I called them and they confirmed that one perhaps overzealous employee had been asking potential customers if they already had a home security system.

"That's not acceptable," the head of the marketing operation said. "That's not a question they needed to be asking."

Since the company apologized and said the employee would be retrained, I'm not going to slam them here by name. But it's a reminder that you really shouldn't divulge personal information to people who call on the phone.

Unless it's a Washington Post reporter, of course.

Then you should spill your guts.

I always wear a helmet and a seat belt while checking my e-mail, which you may send to kellyj@washpost.com.