$5.00 is too high a price. . .

One of my favorite scenes from "The West Wing" is at the end of the pilot episode. It sets the scene for the series nicely when the President of the United States comes into a White House conference room and gives a couple right-wing nuts a well-deserved slapping around.

One of them asks him, "If children can buy pornography on the street for $5.00, isn't that too high a price for free speech?" The answer is "no, but I do think $5.00 is too high a price for pornography."

I was reminded of that today when an executive at one of the places I work (which I will call Minotaur - who can guess why?) handed over some receipts for reimbursement. Expense reporting at Minotaur is a byzantine and precise process. One small error can result in complete failure and you end up not getting your refund for weeks.

This executive had gone on a business trip and lived pretty well. I found hotel bills, meal receipts, taxi fare and one very interesting little item. It was an itemized receipt from an adult entertainment store, totaling more than $70 for three movies, each clearly named on the slip.

At first, I assumed it was a joke. Perhaps it was put there to see if anyone was paying attention. But as the afternoon went on in a slightly surreal way, it was not to be.

To be honest, the thing that struck me the most was the cost of it all. Had this person never tried buying honest cheap porn in New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Taiwan, the Internet or anywhere else it must have been cheaper?

Also, what adult entertainment store, a place where discretion would be valorous, itemizes receipts? And again, who the hell would KEEP the receipt?

Putting on my detective hat, I stepped into a late-night curiosity shop near the NYU campus and asked the cashier, who had been pierced more times than St. Theresa, if she ever gave itemized receipts. She recalled only one time, when the customer apparently asked for it.

"Did they say why?" I felt compelled to ask.

"He said it was tax deductible," she told me. "Some part of therapy."

You heard it here first, folks. That vibrator, magazine or black leather thong can be reported to the IRS as "therapy." It makes you wonder how many people get away with that, and how many live in Greenwich Village.

As for the Minotaur exec, we pulled the receipt. Even if he gets a break on his adjusted gross income, I wouldn't want to be the one who signs for a complete refund of the least economical porn I have ever heard of.