A tourist in Washington, DC, stops to take a photo of a historic monument. His eye is caught by a pair of men working on the grass parking strip between the sidewalk and street.

One man digs a hole a few feet deep and moves on. The second man then fills in the hole. The men work right past the fellow with the camera and continue on down the road.

"I can't stand this," says the man, getting into his car. He drives down the road toward the men.

"Hold it, hold it," he says to the men. "What's going on with all this digging?"

"Well, we work for the government, " one of the men replies.

"But one of you is digging a hole and the other is filling it up. You're not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting the taxpayer's money?"

"You don't understand, mister," one of the men says, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of us on this crew: me, Bill and George. I dig the hole, Bill sticks in the tree and George here puts the dirt back."

"Yeah," pipes up George. "Just because Bill called in sick today, that don't mean Ralph and I can't work, does it?"