Hobbling Hikers

Some years ago, I owned a small business based in Toronto taking groups of people on hiking holidays in North America and to various countries around the world. One year, I added a twoweek hiking holiday in Malta, to the brochure that I mailed out in January every year. The trip quickly filled up with 24 people— the maximum I would take. Then I received a phone call from a lady who lived in northern Ontario, asking if she could join the group. I told her the group was full and she was very disappointed, as her husband had died recently and she wanted to get away on a holiday somewhere. Then she added that she did not actually want to hike as she had a bad leg, but would just go sightseeing instead, using the local buses on the island.

On hearing this, I agreed that she could join the group, so she sent me a cheque in payment. I mailed her the itinerary and her ticket for the airline and told her we would meet her in the departure lounge at the airport.

I subsequently learned that on receipt of her plane ticket, she had phoned up the airline and requested that a wheelchair be available at the check-in desk because of her bad leg, and then brightly added that she was going on a hiking trip to Malta with a group of at least 20 others. The airline representative obviously misunderstood what she was asking because when I arrived at the check-in desk, there were 20 wheelchairs lined up, waiting behind the counter for a group of hobbling hikers!