I was flying with my friend Mike in a 200 King Air inbound to TPA. When we couldn't get three gear lights, we told the tower we would abort to work on the gear problem.

Tower:
"Would you like to declare an emergency?"

Mike:
"Emergency is such a harsh word."

Tower:
"Understand. We'll roll out the equipment anyway, though."

(Thankfully, we landed without a problem.)

Dan Carr
via e-mail