The housekeepers refer to the owner contemptuously as "La Chingadera".

She describes her employees as "the help".

Black men make good maintenance workers. Mexican women are maids. White college students, preferably male, make desk clerks: we're trying to better ourselves, she considers desk clerking an upwardly mobile occupation. Not however within "the company".

She considers me a political simpleton for supporting the anti-nuclear demonstrations in Europe. We haven't yet discussed Nicaragua.

In her scratchy witch's voice she complains, "Why can't the civilized countries get together and do something about the problem of terrorism?"