× Expand The Willy Street gas station has been displaying witticisms for about a decade.

For the first time in about a decade, the only gas station on Willy Street is not displaying a clever pun or turn of phrase on its wall. Customers and neighbors delighted in seeing messages like, “Two thieves stole a calendar, they each got six months,” “She was only a whisky maker but he loved her still,” and “When chemists die, they barium.”

The marquee-style sign that displayed these paraprosdokians — a figure of speech that has a surprise twist or double entendre that changes its meaning, usually to humorous effect — was removed a few weeks ago.

Kuldip Singh, owner of the Spirit station at 1130 Williamson St., says the city made him take down the sign. He’s in the process of switching from the Spirit franchise to Amoco. The petroleum company requires new signage to be put up and city law only permits one sign on any street-facing wall.

“It was a fun thing. People liked it,” Singh says about the sign. “Everybody has been asking where it went.”

Matt Tucker — Madison’s zoning administrator — disputes that the city is to blame for making the infamously funky Willy Street less colorful.

“They already had a sign on this street-facing wall,” says Tucker. “[Singh] chose to take it down and put up a different sign because you only get one sign. This makes all the sense in the world from my perspective.”

But Singh says he didn’t have a choice. As part of his contract with Amoco, he says he’s required to put up a “To Go” sign — the company’s preferred branding for the convenience stores that sell its gas. These signs don’t have a blank message area typically used to advertise deals on wiper fluid or soda, so there’s no place to display any more paraprosdokians.

“Who you should be calling is the people at Amoco in that big tower in Houston,” says Tucker, half-jokingly. “Ask them why they won’t let him keep the sign.”

Singh has no interest in fighting Amoco or city hall. He could be fined $30 a day by the city for having two signs displayed on the side of his business. Singh says for years the city did allow him to have a sign over his door and the pun sign on the wall.

“It wasn’t an issue before,” says Singh, shrugging his shoulders. “But I do not want to cause any problems so you can pursue this yourself.”

Ald. Marsha Rummel, who represents the area, is sorry to see the sign go.

“As a regular customer of the gas station, I looked forward to reading the wall sign with its clever and often wise aphorisms about life,” Rummel writes in an email.

Grant Zimmerman, who lives next door to the gas station, was given free rein by Singh to display offbeat messages on the wall sign about 10 years ago. He took the task seriously.

“I usually tried to come up with something funny or that would make you think. I loved doing it,” Zimmerman says. “I was never trying to be mean-spirited or offend anyone. I made sure not to get too political.”

The election of President Donald Trump did prompt one of the more memorable sayings: “Don’t buy shredded cheese, Make America Grate Again.” Another favorite was “Never trust atoms, they make up everything.”

Zimmerman’s wordplay caused some controversy nationally in 2013 after putting up the phrase, “Don’t die a virgin, terrorists are up there waiting for you.”

“The gas station was a BP station at the time,” says Zimmerman. “BP got wind of it and demanded it be taken down.”

As fate would have it, Zimmerman says BP putting up a stink got Singh out of that contract and he switched to Spirit in 2014. This gives him some hope that the Willy Street gas station will one day display his work again.

“Some high-powered executives at BP were talking about my sign,” says Zimmerman proudly. “They tried to stop me and I won.”

As Zimmerman once wrote on the gas station sign, “Sweet dreams are made of cheese, who am I to dis a brie.”