No partisanship here, just a local note: Homegirl is going to be the speaker of the house. Nancy Pelosi is Baltimore born, bred and buttered, a member of a storied political family here. In fact, her brother features in a Baltimore Sun legend, a story so good that we all know it's probably not true. Still, we tell it.

Now, one thing about being a reporter -- you blame a lot of stuff on the bosses. "I hate to ask this, but my editor says . . ." Or, sometimes, you blame it on the faceless entity known as the city desk. As in: "My desk wants to know . . ."

So the story goes that a reporter has to talk to "Young Tommy," Mayor Tommy D'Alesandro III, and the reporter says, "My desk wants to know --"

Young Tommy holds up a hand to silence the reporter and puts his ear down on the desk in front of him, listening intently for several seconds. He then says: "My desk tells your desk to go fuck itself."

It probably never happened. But it should have.

Got any stories too good to be true? Why not tell them here?