A few years ago some friends of ours came from Germany for a visit. High on their list of sights was Washington DC, famous around the world for its classic white marble buildings and clean, wide streets. Though only a five hours car ride from our house, the four of us decided to stay overnight in a hotel and continue our sight seeing the next day.

Unfortunately, the hotels were completely booked and I had to widen our search considerably before I located a motel with a vacancy. As hosts, we were slightly embarrassed as we entered the less well known areas of DC. Our German guests couldn't understand how the seediest of housing existed so close to the impressive halls of American Government. We explained how the working classes liked to live where many jobs availed themselves in the infrastructure of a government complex as the street lights grew dimmer and the buildings poorer.

Finally arriving at our destination, we entered the motel lobby and approached the desk. A hard looking mature woman responded to our request with the question, "Will that be for one hour or all night?" Perplexed, my wife answered, "All night, of course". The woman licked the pencil and checked off a box. Then my wife added, pointing to we two men, "We are all together and these are our husbands."

The woman closed her eyes, showed us her palms, turned the book around for us to sign and in a weary, complaisant voice stated, "I don't want to know." !