Have it your way

This month’s winner is KAREN WAGNER of Monarch Beach, California:

A few years ago, my husband, Gery, and I were traveling on a 2-week land tour around South Africa. As a special treat one day, our small group stopped at a lovely resort on the east coast near Port Elizabeth and was hosted for lunch in a private dining area.

The waitress presented us with beautifully printed special menus from which we could choose between two entrées to have with the salad and dessert. We all chose the sesame chicken entrée.

While ordering, I asked the waitress if we could choose between white or dark meat, and she said, “Of course you can!” My husband and I chose dark meat, while the others all chose white meat.

Chatting and admiring the beautiful view of the coastline, we finished our salads. The other folks were served their entrées first, and the sesame chicken was a luscious golden brown. When my husband’s and mine arrived, the chicken was charred a dark, dark brown, almost black. Think burned to a crisp!

I called the waitress over and asked if we could have our chicken more like the golden-brown chicken on the other plates. She looked surprised and said, “Well, you did order dark meat, and yours is dark, right?”

We agreed and ate the crispy, black chicken without further comment.

Tell us about the funniest thing that 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. ITN staff will choose each month’s winner, who will receive a free one-year subscription to ITN. Include your full mailing address. Entries not chosen cannot be acknowledged.