Anybody have a PITA?

[xrocketengineer]

Many years ago, after we finished supporting a Space Shuttle post landing and recovery activities at Edwards AFB, my boss called me from FL to tell me to stay in the LA area instead of returning back with the rest of the crew to FL. There was going to be a design review of some orbiter hardware and he wanted me to attend. So, a contractor counterpart was volunteered to ride with me back to the LA area and to find a motel since we had no reservations. After hours of driving around looking for a motel with vacancies, we finally found one that looked very run down but had rooms available. When we got to front counter, there were two guys, one was Oriental looking and the other seemed to be Hindu. When we asked a question, before they answered, the Oriental guy would turn and face the Hindu guy and talk to him in a foreign language. Then the Hindu guy would answer our question back in very good English. So, we thought that it was kind of odd. But to our surprise as we kept talking to them, they continued with answering that way. One guy was listening then he would talk to the other guy in a foreign language and the the other guy would reply. On our way to our rooms, my counterpart and I concluded that one was the receiver and the other one was the transmitter.