Welcome! This is a replacement-ref discussion-free zone

I can't take it any more. Sure, I took cruel delight in the way the end of Monday night's Green Bay-Seattle game was so bungled by the replacement officials and unleashed a barrage of snarky tweets like the following:

@Hlas The Seahawk receiver could have hit the Packer defender with a folding chair, and it would have been a no-call.

But now I need to be free of it.

It was all I could find on my radio on a drive to and from Iowa City Tuesday. It was even mentioned in a break between songs on a satellite radio music station.

My e-mail box was cluttered with idiocy. Someone wanted me to sign a petition demanding the NFL end its labor dispute with its referees. A petition. Yeah, those always work.

A public relations outfit in Manhattan offered to set up an interview for me with a crisis communications and branding specialist for insights on how NFL Comissioner Roger Goodell to handle the situation. Into the delete basket that went at warp-speed.

A Costa Rican sports-betting site wanted me to spread the word about it granting its customers a Replacement Refs Mulligan. I applaud generosity in most cases. This isn't one of them.

As soon as I got back to my Gazette office from Iowa City, it was as if the sports department were an open house for lost souls to enter and chime in about the hijinks from the night before.

"Why didn't the defensive back just knock the ball down?" I was asked.

You know what? I don't know. And don't care.

So this post is an official sanctuary from discussion about Monday night's game, or replacement refs in general. You can talk politics, religion, whatever you want here at this one isolated post. You can talk about your kids, your parents, your neighbors, your car, your summer vacation, global warming, perceived slights, anything. You can talk about your hopes and goals and dreams. Just keep it clean and civil.

But if you as much as mention replacement refs, I'll have no choice but to take away your Internet privileges. Not your ability to post here or on the Gazette's site as a whole, but the entire Internet. That's harsh, but it's quite fair. And don't ask how I'd do it. You do not want to know.

Oh, I'd also appreciate it if you left politics and religion out of the mix, too. The same goes for summer vacation stories. Perceived slights are always entertaining, though.

OK, the following is funny: