For high-quality service, press 2 for Spanish

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Mayor Adrian M. Fenty says the city has an obligation to provide "high-quality customer service" to illegal aliens, which undoubtedly comes as a shock to those legal residents who sometimes question the efficiency of customer service.

This is after you have pressed one for English instead of two for Spanish and entered the bureaucratic maze that leads to a plethora of disembodied voices before speaking to an actual living person who transfers you to yet another living being until, somewhere in the process, someone on the other end taps the wrong button and you lose your connection, which means you have to start all over again.

Or, you just shake your head and decide it is not worth the bother, which perhaps is the unstated purpose of the official merry-go-round.

Perhaps it does not go down this way if you are an illegal alien who speaks Spanish. Perhaps the illegal alien is helped immediately and comes away completely satisfied with the city. I have no way of knowing what is what, because I do not hang out with the illegal aliens at Home Depot on Rhode Island Avenue Northeast. I do not compete in their bladder-relief celebrations or take siestas under the front porches of nearby homes, which, of course, upsets some of the homeowners.

Few homeowners like having an illegal alien sleep under their front porch, regardless of how fatigued the illegal alien may be. It is just off-putting to have a strange man sleeping under your front porch, whether he is a legal or illegal resident or merely a drunk who has lost his way.

Perhaps having a weak bladder and being fluent in Spanish is the way to go in this city. Then one of the D.C. Council members will propose setting aside $500,000 in taxpayer money to fund a day-laborer building that will have bathroom facilities, social services and a state-of-the-art spa.

"It is our job to provide services, not to ask questions about legal status," Mr. Fenty said last week.

They are asking those very questions in Loudoun and Prince William counties, which the city's lawmakers find repugnant. The D.C. Council passed a resolution last month that criticized the Neanderthals in those counties.

They are just not "enlightened" in the outer suburbs, as Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett put it. And that could be. Studies confirm that the majority of residents who live in those areas are functional illiterates and partial to their outhouses.

Of course, when you are spending other people's money, it is easy to be enlightened. You can hand a few bucks to an illegal alien after he has completed irrigating the side of a building wall and stick out your chest and say, "See what I did? See what a good person I am?"

I do not know whether Mr. Fenty is trying to secure the illegal-alien vote because, as you know, illegal aliens have every right to participate in America's elections, just as most Americans have the right to vote in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and the like. I am a registered voter in Nicaragua, in case you were wondering. And I do have full social security benefits coming to me from Belize. And I do have a valid driver's license from Mexico, which comes in handy whenever I am transporting cocaine into the U.S.

Our Constitution ensures that all illegal aliens have a right to eschew the annoying practice of obtaining a passport, visa and green card. I just wish our Constitution extended similar courtesies to those born in this country.

One other thing: Because we are an open-border country, can we please stop the taking-off-your-shoes-at-the-airport thing? We do not care to know who is coming into this country. But if we just take off our shoes at the airport, we all will be safe.

What a disconnect, not unlike the one you sometimes experience with the city.