NAIVE OR JUST PLAIN STUPID?

When I was 18 years old I had a great-paying one-off two night gig as the drummer in a semi-jazz quartet that played in the nightclub of a hotel about 100 miles outside of New York City. The band was given two rooms in which to sleep, two in a room. The first night the sax player and I slept in the same room, and because of his continual loud snoring I hardly slept a wink the entire night. The morning finally came and I was exhausted. When I mentioned the problem to the leader (who was sleeping in the same room with the bassist, his closest friend} he said he was sorry but there was nothing he could do—he wasn’t willing to switch rooms. I’m someone who requires a lot of sleep, especially after playing. At the time I lived at home with little overhead so I had extra cash with me. I decided to pay for my own room where I could get some sleep before and after the second night of the gig. And since I was in the band I was offered a very special discount. The room I was given contained a small fridge filled with bottles of water, cans of beer, and little bottles of alcohol. This may be hard to believe, but it was the first time I ever stayed as a guest in a hotel. I only drank beer and wine, not hard liquor. I was actually unaware that there were tiny bottles of liquor for sale--I simply assumed they were free samples given to hotels for their guests as advertisements. Before going home I took all the small bottles from the fridge thinking I would give them to friends, and packed them into my  drum case with the snare. When I went to pay the bill for my room it showed about $50 over what I expected---the hotel was charging for the little bottles of liquor. I complained to the manager that they were mistakenly charging me for sample bottles—after all, they’re free advertisements. He looked at me with a sort of shocked disbelief and said the bottles certainly were not simply given free by manufacturers. When he realized I was pretty young and wasn’t trying to pull the wool over his eyes he started smiling at the fact that I actually believed what I was saying. I was about to tell him to simply take the bottles back when he said, “I'm not going to charge you. You can have the bottles for free because not only do I believe you since nobody could make up a crazy tale like that, but your excuse will make a terrific story for me to tell to friends and family for years to come.”