I showed up at a very nice resort hotel, extraordinarily late, for a company-wide meeting. My flight from the East Coast to the West Coast had been delayed, re-routed, and so on, and I ended up walking into my hotel at 4 AM. The scariest-looking guy I’ve ever seen behind a hotel desk greeted me.
When I said I was checking in, he seemed immediately flustered and started calling rooms. He apologized if someone answered. It took me a couple of seconds to realize he had no idea who was in which room, and he was calling rooms at 4 AM to see what was empty. He finally located an empty room and gave me the key. I went to the room, closed the door, and hoped to get about two hours of sleep before my morning meeting. Realizing what he had done, I thought I’d be smart and take my phone off the hook before I went to sleep.
9. The Miscounted Passenger: A Desert Tour’s Oversight
In Morocco, I joined a guided desert tour with 12 others. I went behind a dune for a bathroom break—maybe 4 minutes. When I came back, the caravan was gone. No guide, no tire tracks. I waited an hour under the sun, trying to conserve water. Finally, a local herder found me and gave me a ride to the nearest outpost. Turns out the guide did a miscount and didn’t even realize I was missing until dinner.
10. The Boat That Ran Out of Fuel: An Italian Excursion Gone Wrong
We rented a small boat off the coast of Italy. The rental guy gave us a short demo and told us we were good to go for 4 hours. About 90 minutes in, the engine sputtered and died—we were out of fuel.
We were 2 miles from shore with no paddles, no radio, and spotty cell signal. Turns out the guy reused leftover fuel from earlier trips and didn’t refill. A passing fisherman spotted us and towed us in. The rental place gave us a “discount” instead of an apology.
