Apparently laundering clothes in Italy can lead to humorous moments. On a visit to Venice we rented a room from a city resident who lived in the Ca d' Tintoretto in the Canareggio. Upon leaving for work one day our hostess warned us not to use the apartment's petite dryer but didn't really give us specifics. My ever skeptical wife figured a couple of turns in the dryer for her wet socks could surely do no harm. In went the wet clothes, on went the dryer, and off went the electricity in the whole building, some five apartments, or so.

Fortunately the electricity had been installed some 400 years after the building had been constructed. Therefore, following the electrical conduit out the apartment and down the stairway to the circuit breakers near the entrance was done in a flash. Almost before the clamor began in the apartments throughout the building. We hurriedly left for our day of sightseeing as the neighbor's expletives flew from their doorways. But we never heard a word about it from our hostess during the remainder of our stay.

John checking his wife's birth certificate to make sure her real name isn't Pandora