By hook or by crook

This month’s winner is WILLIAM SOLOF of Golden, Colorado:

While my wife, Arlene, and I were traveling in the Pyrénées without reservations a few years ago, all had been well until our last night. No place had a vacancy. 

We stopped and asked a gentleman, in fractured French, if he knew of any accommodations. In broken English, he indicated that a hotel was nearby and described it as “It stops the sheep.”

To prevent further linguistic torture by both parties, we set forth to find it. I told Arlene, “Look for a sign. Could be a sheepdog, a shepherd, even a gate.”

Suddenly she pointed up and could not stop laughing. Above the hotel hung a lighted, 6-foot-tall, neon-blue ship’s anchor.