Funniest Thing for April

Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever happened to you while traveling in a foreign country. There are no restrictions on length. (ITN prints no info on destinations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.) The ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.

This month’s winner is PEGGY PARKER of Milwaukie, OR:

Prior to a trip to Malta, my father purchased a new pair of his regular brand of walking shoe. These consisted of leather uppers and crepe-like soles. Upon arriving, he decided to break them in by wearing them only in the evening, at the hotel, for the first few nights.

At the hotel, we met a lovely, older British couple and joined them for drinks in the lobby each evening. One night, my father, wearing his new shoes, happened to glance down under the coffee table and spotted a pile of yellow crumbs. It turned out his shoes were defective and the soles had been crumbling for several nights.

When he remarked on his discovery, the very polite British lady said, “Well, that’s a good thing, really, as we had been thinking for several evenings that you were trying to hoard biscuits from the afternoon tea.”