When opportunity knocks.

Tell us about the funniest thing that happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the United States.) There are no restrictions on length. ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Include your full mailing address. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged. This month’s winner is JACK CURTIS of Laguna Beach, CA:

 When my wife, Pat, and I were first married, we spent New Year’s Eve in Lisbon, Portugal, in a very elegant hotel. While we were getting ready for a night on the town, I noticed the little pull cord in the bathroom over the tub. Against my wife’s warning, I pulled it and waited to see what would happen. Within a couple of minutes, there was a knock at our door. 

Neither of us was fully clothed, so when I went to the door, I opened it just a crack. A uniformed hotel employee was standing there. Without giving him a chance to speak, I told him that we were OK and that it was a false alarm, closing the door before he could respond.

In a minute or so there was another knock on the door. I cracked it open again, saw the same man and quickly tried to explain that we were OK. My wife even peeked out from the bathroom door and waved to the man. I quickly shut the door before he could speak.

About 20 minutes later we opened our door to leave, and there stood the same man! While he didn’t look very happy, he appeared to be very relieved as he handed me a fruit bowl, a gift from our travel agent that he had been trying to deliver.