Scottish commitment

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 JAMES E. McGEE of Sun City, CA:

Following a visit to my ancestral Hebridean island of Islay in Scotland in June 2010, at the Glasgow airport I went to a currency-exchange facility to change pounds back into dollars.

A complete exchange required a five-dollar bill, and the young man at the counter explained that he had no such bills at the counter. After checking his vault without success, he went to another facility to see if they had a five-dollar bill.

When he returned from his successful mission, I advised him that, for me, a 10-dollar bill would have worked.

He responded, “Aye, sir, but I’m Scottish. It would nae’ work for me.”