While traveling by car thru the beautiful south island of New Zealand, my traveling partner and I stopped in a little town of about 300 people for the night. Checked into one of those small motor lodges.

The bathroom was kinda small, and after completing #2, I reached down to pull up my pants and get off the toilet at the same time. Unfortunately, the towel rack was really close to the toilet, and i somehow managed to knock my head against the end of the towel rack, making a loud noise. "No problem, just a bump on the head," I thought, until a huge stream of blood started dripping down my chin. Eventually I bled enough to soak a wash cloth. I had a large gash about an inch long across the top of my head. My travel partner phoned the hotel staff, who informed us that the nearest hospital was a 2 hour drive away. I started to think of all the bad things that could happen.... I turned out to be OK, but the worst part was explaining to the hotel staff exactly why the bathroom & toilet was all bloody. The next day everyone asked why I was wearing a bandage on my head. "Well, I bumped my head while getting of the toilet you know, just a minor scratch...."

So now after I go bald I'm going to have a huge Harry Potter like scar on the front of my head thanks to that stupid toilet somewhere in New Zealand. I think I'll change my story to "This one time in New Zealand I wanted to try bungy jumping...." instead!



[This message has been edited by csakamoto (edited Dec 13, 2003).]

Vacation trip to Cozumel. The tickets and passports are in posession of me blushin' bride. She is nervously checking and rechecking tickets in her purse as our son drives us to DCA. At the airport, she makes the discovery. My passport is missing.

#1 son heads back home with both feet on the gas pedal of the turbo. By phone, we walk him through all our steps in the house. No passport! As a last resort, he checks the car. It is under me bride's seat. She dropped it while checking for the tickets.

By now it us rush hour in the DC area. Son drives back to DCA, breaking enough traffic laws to get him the death penalty.

He flings me the passport out the car window, and I do an OJ through the airport, getting to the gate just before it closes.

Now she keeps her purse zipped!

A few years ago I planned a stop in London for my husband and me on the way home from a business trip in Europe. Found a great hotel in Fodors which seemed quite reasonable in comparison with most London properties (that should have been my first clue!) Made sure to reserve a room WITH a bath, fearing that it might be done the hallway. Arrived in the room (I won't even describe the rest of the hotel) to find a freestanding shower stall beside the bed. I have never seen such a thing before or after - quite unique! No exercise room available, and we are both compulsive about exercise, so we decided to exercise in the room. I wedged my feet under the radiator in order to do sit-ups. The radiator pulled completely out of the wall. How do you explain that to the management? Moral of the story - check the version of your guidebook. When I doublechecked Fodors after returning home, the entire listing had been revised, now using such terms as "worn", "faded", none of the enticing terms that had sucked me in! I've travelled to Europe 21 times throughout 2002 and 2003, and I have yet to return to London!

[This message has been edited by jpooh100 (edited Dec 15, 2003).]

Some good entries for this year’s Wrong-Way Corrigan award: our own captain of this airship of fools. Still, hard to compete with last year’s winner from SkyPrincess:

I consider myself lucky that my embarrassing moment didn’t get me arrested.
Returning home last month after my Grandmother’s 100th birthday party, I got jammed up at MHT security. I was wearing a zip up sweater that the screener insisted must be removed so that it could be X-rayed. I politely explained that I wasn’t wearing anything underneath except a mock turtleneck (material that covers one’s neck but stops just below the neckline) and my undergarments. The screener continued to insist that I remove my “outerwear”. The screener summoned the police who agreed that my “outerwear” must be removed. Finally, frustration trumped good sense and I pulled the stupid sweater off and tossed it to the screener running the X-ray machine. I’ve never seen TSA screeners move so fast.

wrong flight/airport....
did a weekly commute between LHR & ORD in 2001, always BA 297, wednesdays 3pm something
in june, as always late, as always checking in at the machine, as always going on the plane and falling asleep immediately.
woke up after some time, worked a little bit and had a look at the inflight map, 1.5 hours to go.
gosh, i thought, that was a long sleep for an afternoon.
looked closer and found out that i was on a ba to BOS
had originally booked this one and forgotten to reschedule plus messed up my timing in the first place, as the BOS flight is an hour later
still made my meeting in chicago the next morning ...:-)

Who won the game?

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The perfect ladies' man is a perfect gentleman.

Not last year, but I HAVE to get this off my chest:

Flying home from Milano, took a cab to Linate instead of Malpensa. Walked into Linate, immediately realized my mistake.

$100 cab ride later, arrived sweating and with a justifiably ticked of spouse in tow (I do tend to take charge and give off, I don't know, a certain attitude of certitude ...)with 30 minutes to go and certainly well within the time they could have refused boarding.

At security check, they asked why I was so late and looked so over heated. I said, "I'm too embarrassed to tell you."

"You must, or we will not let you board." said the lady.

I confessed my stupidity and perhaps out of pity, they let us proceed. More likely pity for my wife!

I was with the family the day after Christmas 1999, going to Palm Springs. Husband, two kids and my mom. We were seated and awaiting takeoff when an FT asked for a member of the Gibson family to step forward. My husband of course looks to me to go see what it is, and they took me off to inspect something "buzzing" in my luggage. Of course, the words carried, and the plane was buzzing as well. I immediately remembered that one of the Christmas gifts popular that season was a scalp-massaging hairbrush from Brookstone, and I had bought one for my 13 year-old son. He had -OF COURSE- packed it in the outer part of his suitcase and LOCKED THE CASE with the old-fashioned key type lock. I was blushing and mortified, he was on the plane, we were below on the load-ramp and the embarrassed luggage guys and the FT said "if you are okay to fly with it, we are". This was pre-911 of course. I returned to my seat, beet-red amid all the people having heard and saying "SURE, it was a vibrating hairbrush" I can chuckle now but it was a defining experience.

I am humiliated that I took so long to declare a winner. After a very enjoyable re-read, the winner is...


This is clearly something that I could do, so I feel your pain. But, as I learned at a breakfast speech last week from the General who runs the prison for terrorists at our base in Cuba, “We in the service do not get lost, only temporarily mis-orientated.” So, airbus, YGM to claim the (not so coveted) victor’s lunch with Jailer. Well done.

Well, darn. I didn't know that a lunch with Jailer was up for grabs! I might have been motivated to expose some humiliating episode in my past if I'd known that. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Sure, SD1K....like you have one of those. Next year, I think I'll submit the winning entries. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif


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The perfect ladies' man is a perfect gentleman.

As we Brooklyn Dodgers fans say, "wait till next year."

Wow! Thanks. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I was on a date with my wife, still dating then and just begun. We had a long day. I turned down a wrong road from where we wanted to go to, St. Michaels, MD. Was too proud to ask for directions and wound up on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge back towards Baltimore. Went to aquarium instead. After a long day, we headed back towards Wilmington, where we lived. First restaurant was packed. We went to another restaurant. We were seated and ordered our dinner. We both got up and went to the salad bar. My wife returned from the salad bar with her salad followed by me. There were steps from where we were seated down to the salad bar. As she climbed the steps, I followed. As I climbed the steps, I noticed a cherry tomato starting to roll off my plate. I tried to save it and focused on the tomato as I was walking. I tripped over the steps and face planted myself into my salad. I didn’t spill too much of it but had salad dressing all over my forehead and glasses. I sat down and everyone in the area was dying laughing. I started to wipe my face off with my napkin (cloth, mind you) and told the people sitting in the booth next to us that this would be the only free show for the evening. My wife was horrified and slumped down in the booth real low. I never even thought to excuse myself and cleaned myself there. My wife said that if that had been our first date, it would have been our last. Needless to say, I have been extra conscious about salad bars since and my wife ALWAYS reminds me not to face plant into my salad.

Since that time, did you ever eventually make it to St. Michaels?

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The perfect ladies' man is a perfect gentleman.