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Tell ITN about the funniest thing that ever 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. 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 PAUL ROTH of Elizabethtown, PA:

In 1991, my wife, Meriam, and I traveled back to the Philippines for my father-in-law’s funeral and to visit family. We flew into Manila and headed for the islands of Cebu and Mindanao.

When it was about time to return home, it had been a month since I had paid any attention to my watch, television or the news. I probably should have paid closer attention; two days before we were to leave for Manila to catch our flight, we heard about the Mount Pinatubo volcano erupting. It wasn’t that far from Manila.

I called the airline. A very friendly girl answered the phone. I gave her my flight information and asked if there would be a problem with our flight due to the volcano’s eruption. She seemed deeply concerned and told me to hold on while she checked.

I could hear a lot of office chatter going on in the background, so I knew that she had put the receiver down and not hung up on me. During the 15 minutes or so that she was gone, Meriam and her family kept asking me what was going on.

Finally, the girl returned and gave me the news. I thanked her and hung up the phone, then started laughing.

“What did she say?” my wife asked.

I passed on the words that I can still remember being said to me in a very relieved and cheerful manner: “Sir, I am so very happy to inform you that there will be no problem with your flight. We canceled it.”