We restart the KPPY after a Covid instigated furlough. It's a combinatorics seminar. There is no need to be jealous. Anyone can start a combinatorics seminar.

Sebastian, one of the speakers, will stay the night in Daegu after the seminar so we can try to work on a problem.

After the seminar, I take him to the hotel that we have booked for him. I go to the front desk with him to make sure there are no problems. There are none, and as he walks to the elevator to go up to the room, I walk to the stairs to leave.

The desk lady yells after him, "Honja yo? Honja isseoyo?" Are you staying on your own?

I hear and go back up. "Yeah, we just booked for one." I tell her.

"What about you?" she asks.

"I live in Daegu." I say. But what I am thinking is: It's none of your damn business.

Now you think I'm going to refer back the nosey hotel lady in Japan that I ran into last month, but there is an other story that this reminds me of, because it happened with Mathias, another German, and one coincidentally that Sebastian knows.

In grad school, Mathias and I drove from Atlanta to Memphis for a conference. We were sharing a room in the student dorms. It was a dorm, so when you check in, they give you the bed clothes and a towel to take to the room with you.

When we check in, the check-in guy says, "There are two beds, but... do you need two sets of sheets?"

"We booked two spots right?" I say to him.

He looks around a little nervously, like he thinks there might be someone watching him.

"I just... I didn't want to presume."

"You don't have to presume to give us two sets of sheets. It is more a presumption to ask if we need them." I say.

"Yeah, right. I just...sorry." he says, giving us the sheets. "It's just down the hall there."

We start down the hall.

Mathias turns back, and putting on a stereo-typical German accent, much stronger than his usual accent, says "Ve'll take the two sets of sheets. But let zere be no mistakes about it, ve vill f**k!"

My wife looks over my shoulder as I am writing this, and says, "I always knew there was something between you and that German!"

Is it odd that my wife thinks I'm gay? But I just it speaks to how accepting she is.