When my in-laws were out for a visit once when we lived in the Bay Area, they stayed at the Hotel California. "Doesn't that worry you?" I asked. "Why?" they asked. I said, "You know, 'you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.'" My mother-in-law looked at me, baffled: "Why wouldn't I be able to leave?" (They are the only Baby Boomers I have ever met who had no idea what Bob Dylan's voice sounds like. My anti-earworm technique is to sing the song in the style of Bob Dylan. When I demonstrated for them, they looked at me as though I'd grown a second head.)

My other favorite Hotel California thing is when my household went to our dear departed Russian steakhouse with dd_b and lydy, and the crazy Russian lounge singer sang "hWelcome to the kHotel Kha-lee-forrrr-nya," and Lydy laughed so hard she felt she had to hide in her napkin. I miss the palacsinta there, but even more I miss having a place where Lydy had to hide in her napkin from laughing.